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OLDFIELD 


A KENTUCKY TALE OF THE 
LAST CENTURY 


BY 

NANCY HUSTON BANKS 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARPER PENNINGTON 




Ntirt gork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO.. Ltd. 
1902 


All rights reserved 


WOODRIDQ* 






Copyright, 1902, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped May, 1902. Reprinted July, 
August, September, October, 1902. 


j>' ♦- 






Nortooob 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 

TRANSFBB 

Dt O, PUBLIC LIBBABY 
BJUPT. 10. IMO 


352988 


..no^CSiS^’ 




u\' 


®o ^2 iFatijer 


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C^ V 

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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. 

The Little Sisters 



PAGE 

. I 

II. 

The Oldfield People . 



• 17 

III. 

Phases of Village Life 



• 35 

IV. 

The Child of Miss Judy’s Heart 


• 45 

V. 

An Unconscious Philosopher 



. 58 

VI. 

Lynn Gordon .... 



• 74 

VII. 

The Doctor’s Dilemma 



. 89 

VIII. 

At Old Lady Gordon’s 



. lOI 

IX. 

A Romantic Region 



. 117 

X. 

Religion in Oldfield . 



. 138 

XI. 

Body or Soul 



. 156 

XII. 

Miss Judy’s Little Ways 



. 170 

XIII. 

The Dancing Lesson 



. 190 

XIV. 

Making Peace 



. 211 

XV. 

Sidney does Her Duty 



. 230 

XVI. 

The Shock and the Fright 



. 248 

XVII. 

Love’s Awakening . 



. 265 

XVIII. 

An Embarrassing Accident . 



. 282 

XIX. 

Invoking the Law . 



. 296 

XX. 

The Conflict between Faith 

AND Love 

. 316 

XXL 

What Oldfield thought and 

SAID 


• 331 

XXII. 

The Upas Tree 



• 347 

XXIII. 

The Beginning of the End . 



. 362 

XXIV. 

Old Lady Gordon’s Anger . 



• 374 

XXV. 

The Revelation of the Truth . 


. 386 

XXVI. 

The Tragedy .... 



• 399 

XXVII. 

The Last Artfulness of Miss Judy 


. 411 








ILLUSTRATIONS 


“ Which he wore like a Roman toga ! ” (Chap. II) 

^ Those endearing young charms 

The doctor was growling ” . . . . 

She came in, radiant with smiles ” . 

‘ Do you know any girls who work ? ’ ” . 

‘ Grave fiddlesticks,’ retorted she ” . 

“ She played ceaselessly ” . . . 

“ His hand caught one of the portico pillars ” . 


Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

. 52 

. 156 
. 226 
. 276 
. 306 

• 330 

. . 4C2 


IX 


OLDFIELD 


I 

THE LITTLE SISTERS 


The old white curtain was slightly too short. 
Its quaint border of little cotton snowballs 
swung clear of the window ledge, letting in the 
sunbeams. The flood of light streaming far 
across the faded carpet reached the high bed, 
and awakened Miss Judy earlier than usual on 
that bright March morning, in the Pennyroyal 
Region of Kentucky, a half century ago. 

Miss Judy was always awake early, and 
usually arose while her sister lay still fast 
asleep on the other side of the big bed. She 
had learned, however, to creep so softly from 
beneath the covers, and to climb so quietly 
down the bed’s steep incline, that Miss Sophia 
was hardly ever in the least disturbed. More- 
over, Miss Judy always kept a split-bottomed 
chair standing near her pillow at night. This 
served not only as a stand for the candlestick 
and matches, — so that the candle need not 
be blown out before Miss Sophia was comfort- 
ably cuddled down and Miss Judy was in bed, 
— but it also furnished a dignified and com- 
paratively easy means of ascending the bed’s 
heights. On descending. Miss Judy had but to 

B I 


Oldfield 


step decorously from the mound of feathers 
to the chair and to drop delicately from the 
chair to the floor. 

To have seen Miss Judy doing this must 
have been a sight well worth seeing. She was 
so very pretty, so small, so slight, so exquisite 
altogether. Old as she was, she had still the 
movements of a bird. Her sweet old face 
was as fair as any girl’s, and as ready with its 
delicate blushes. Her soft hair, white as falling 
snowflakes and as curly as a child’s, was bur- 
nished by a silver gloss lovelier than the sheen 
of youth. And her beautiful eyes were still the 
blue of the flax flowers. 

Lifting her shining, curly head on that sunny 
morning. Miss Judy cast a glance of dismay at 
the ruthless sunbeams lying on the carpet, and 
she could not help a slight start. Then she 
held her breath for a moment, turning her blue 
eyes on the back of Miss Sophia’s nightcap, in a 
look of anxious love. It always gave Miss Sophia 
a headache to be aroused suddenly. Miss Judy 
was afraid that the involuntary movement might 
have startled her. They were veiy'^ tender of 
each other, these two poor little sisters. And 
they were very, very polite to one another; 
more polite to one another than they were to 
others, if that were possible. Miss Sophia, who 
could not always remember the smaller matters 
of fine breeding where other people were con- 
cerned, never forgot the smallest courtesy toward 
her sister. Miss Judy, who was ever the pink 
— the sweetest, old-fashioned clovepink — of 


The Little Sisters 


politeness to everybody, always treated Miss 
Sophia with such distinguished consideration 
as was a lesson in manners to see. And no one 
ever smiled : it was too lovely to be laughed at 
— too sincere to be absurd. Lying down side 
by side every night of their long and blameless 
lives, they formally wished each other pleasant 
dreams, and bade one another a ceremonious 
good night. Rising every morning — sepa- 
rately, with delicate regard for the simple mys- 
teries of one another’s toilet — they greeted each 
other at breakfast as two high-bred strangers 
might meet in some grand drawing-room. 

Leaning upon her elbow. Miss Judy now 
listened for a space to her sister’s breathing. 
She could always tell when all was well with 
Miss Sophia’s slumbers, by a mild little puffing 
sound, which did no harm, but which nothing 
would ever have induced Miss Judy to men- 
tion to Miss Sophia or to any one. The puffs 
continuing peacefully. Miss Judy smiled lov- 
ingly and, laying the cover back with no more 
noise than a mouse makes, she flitted birdlike 
from the mound of feathers to the chair and 
thence to the homemade rug. She was always 
careful to stand on the rug while dressing, in 
order to save the carpet. Miss Sophia also 
always meant to stand on it, but she sometimes 
forgot that as she did many other things. The 
carpet was long past saving, as it was long past 
further fading; but neither Miss Judy nor Miss 
Sophia had begun to suspect the fact. To them 
it was still the elegant all-wool three-ply which 


Oldfield 


their mother had spun and woven and sewed with 
her own hands. Accordingly, Miss Judy now 
hastened to spread a strip of rag carpet in the 
sun’s path, before commencing to dress. The 
big, bare room was cold, the handful of chips, 
which had made a cheerful blaze at bedtime, 
having died out during the night. But Miss 
Judy did not know that she was shivering. She 
was not in the habit of thinking of her own com- 
fort, and it did not occur to her to kindle a fire 
with the chips which were in the basket beside 
the hearth, until such time as Miss Sophia 
should need the warmth. She merely dressed 
as fast as she could, lingering only over the last 
look in the mirror lying along the top of the 
tall chest of drawers. Such a queer old mirror ! 
Long and narrow in its frame of tarnished gilt, 
with a faded landscape painted on each dim 
end, which was divided from the rest of the glass 
by a solemn little column. The chest stood so 
high and Miss Judy was so small that it was 
not easy for her to get a good look at her 
straight little back. But there was no other 
way of making sure that the point of her white 
muslin kerchief was precisely on a line with the 
bow of her black silk apron strings. And any 
irregularity in this matter would have shocked 
Miss Judy as being positively immodest. She 
managed, however, by standing on the very tips 
of her toes, to see that all was as it should be. 
Settling her cap, she bent down, and noiselessly 
taking the basket of chips, kindled a fire in one 
corner of the wide, empty fireplace, thinking with 
4 


The Little Sisters 


a loving glance at the bed that the room would 
be comfortably warm when Miss Sophia got up. 
Finally, she went into the passage to open the 
front door. 

All the Oldfield front doors were set open in 
the morning and left open all day, whenever the 
weather was reasonably mild; except during the 
summer, when very few of them were closed at 
any time, either night or day. Miss Judy alone, 
of the whole village, always closed hers at bed- 
time all the year round. And she did not do it 
because she was afraid, though everybody knew 
how timid she was. It never occurred to her, 
during the whole of her gentle, innocent life, 
that there could be in the world a living crea- 
ture who would wish to do her any harm. There 
was really nothing for the most timid to fear in 
that quiet, peaceful, pastoral country. To be 
sure, Alvarado, The Terrible, sometimes dashed 
into the village — unexpected, dazzling, fascinat- 
ing, bewildering — and out again like a lightning 
flash. Then most of the men did indeed disappear 
as suddenly as though the earth had opened and 
swallowed them up. But Alvarado never noticed 
the women, and he never came at night. That 
is, no one ever claimed to have seen him gallop- 
ing by after nightfall. Late watchers with the 
sick, who were the only late watchers in Old- 
field, sometimes told fearsome tales of thunder- 
ous hoofs at midnight and of sparks that flew 
blue through the darkness. But Miss Judy had 
never seen or heard anything of the kind. She 
had never seen Alvarado at all, except in the dis- 
5 


Oldfield 


tance and surrounded as he always was by a 
cloud of dust and mystery. She was ever slow 
to believe evil of any one and she rather leaned 
to Alvarado’s side. It was unchristian, she 
thought, to ascribe all sorts of wickedness to a 
man about whom no one actually knew anything 
beyond the fact that he was a stranger and a for- 
eigner and had been most unfortunate. More- 
over, he had been and was still very unhappy, and 
the unfortunate and the unhappy had always a 
friend in Miss Judy. Then the romance of his 
marriage appealed strongly to her imagination. It 
was, of course, very wrong, and even very wicked, 
for him to have tricked and frightened poor Alice 
Fielding into marrying him, but he could hardly 
have known that she loved another man. No- 
body seemed to have known it until too late, — 
not even John Stanley whom she loved, — and 
Alvarado also had loved her. There was never 
any doubt of that. He had not been quite in 
his right mind since her death, many years be- 
fore. In Miss Judy’s tender judgment he was 
much more to be pitied than to be feared. No, 
Alvarado had nothing to do with Miss Judy’s 
closing her door at bed-time. She had closed 
it long before he had ever been heard of in that 
country. She closed it simply and solely be- 
cause she considered it the proper thing to do, 
on account of there being no men-folks about 
the house. The other lone women of Oldfield 
closed theirs too — when they remembered to 
do it — without a murmur, no matter how hot 
the nights were, simply and solely because Miss 


The Little Sisters 


Judy closed hers; for no right-minded member of 
the whole community ever needed a better reason 
for doing, or not doing anything, than to know 
that Miss Judy deemed it proper or improper. 

This quality of leadership is always interest- 
ing, wherever found, and it is nearly always 
hard to explain. In Miss Judy’s case it was even 
harder to make out than it commonly is. The 
singularity of her supremacy had nothing to 
do with her poverty. Neither poverty nor 
riches w'ould appear ever to have anything to 
do with the quality of leadership in any part of 
the earth, and none of Miss Judy’s neighbors 
could be considered either very poor or more 
than well-to-do. The most utterly incompre- 
hensible feature of Miss Judy’s long and abso- 
lute reign was, perhaps, her total lack of every 
personal characteristic of the autocrat. It is 
certainly not the usual qualification for autoc- 
racy to be as gentle and shy as Miss Judy 
was — or as distrustful of self and as trustful 
of others — or as self-forgetful and as thought- 
ful of every one else. The little lady was far too 
timid and soft of spirit knowingly to lay down 
laws for any one : she was only strong and firm 
enough to cling timidly to her own gentle con- 
victions through a hard life of privation, as a dove 
clings to its nest through the fiercest storms. 

She never dreamt that she was an autocrat. 
When she noticed the universal and marked 
deference with which she was always treated, 
she thought it was because her father had been 
greatly respected, and her mother much beloved. 

7 


Oldfield 


It was quite natural that they should have been, 
Miss Judy thought in justification of her own 
shining by a reflected light. They had been 
justly prominent among the earliest settlers of 
the Pennyroyal Region, coming with their two 
infant daughters when Virginia — like a rich 
and generous queen — first began giving away 
the county of Kentucky, to the sons who had 
served her in the Revolution. Those were 
glorious days! To tell about them now 
sounds like a fairy tale. And yet they were 
sad days as well. For, great though the honor 
was and dazzling as was the reward, the officers 
so honored and rewarded must have known that 
the claiming of these lands meant lifelong 
exile for their families and for themselves. It 
would appear so, at all events, since few came 
who could stay nearer to civilization. The 
more fortunate ones stayed on in the old Vir- 
ginia homes, content with holding cloudy titles 
to vast estates lying in this unknown wilderness 
of Kentucky; and with rearing there splendid 
castles in the air. So very cloudy, indeed, were 
many of these titles sent to Virginia by irrespon- 
sible agents, that litigation over them has only 
recently ceased in the local courts. Other offi- 
cers were too poor to employ agents either good 
or bad, and these were consequently compelled 
to go in person, or to lose the grant of land. 
Among those reduced to this sore strait was 
Major John Bramwell, Miss Judy’s father, who 
had won distinction as a captain of horse in 
the War for Independence. The home-coming 
8 


The Little Sisters 


found him utterly stranded. His small patri- 
mony was long since spent, and his wife’s ample 
fortune had shrunk to a mere pittance. He 
knew no means of earning a livelihood, knowing 
even less of the business of peace than most 
soldiers know. Hopelessly in debt, he knew 
not where to .turn for relief; he knew not how 
to find bare bread for his family. The new 
home and the fresh start in the far-off county 
of Kentucky offered the only refuge. The 
young wife consented to go, as she would have 
consented to anything he wished or thought 
best; for she was the gentlest of women, and 
her faith in her husband was absolute. Thus 
it was that they gathered up the few fragments 
of the old happy life, and, taking their two little 
ones, rode sadly away into exile. 

Sad indeed and heavy-hearted must have 
been all those first gentle-people who thus rode 
away from their old homes in Virginia over the 
Alleghanies into the wilderness of Kentucky, 
bearing tender little children in their arms. 
Miss Judy was much too young to remember 
that terrible journey, and Miss Sophia was only 
a baby, but they both knew all about it as soon 
as they were old enough to understand. They 
always wept when they heard how tired the 
delicate little mother was before the awful 
mountains were crossed — no matter how often 
they heard the story. They always smiled 
when they heard how glad all the weary pil- 
grims were to find a broad-horn waiting to 
bear the little band down the Ohio — though 
9 


Oldfield 


they heard the story over and over again. 
And they always followed the broad-horn with 
ever new interest, on and on down that long, 
long river through the primeval forest growing 
to the water’s edge. Forest, forest, forest 
everywhere for hundreds of miles, till they 
came — with the travellers — almost to the vast 
mouth of the mighty river near which the 
Pennyroyal Region lies. 

Miss Judy was not sure that it was called so 
when she entered it, an infant in her father’s 
arms. She always thought it more likely that 
the whole of Kentucky may still have been 
known as The Dark and Bloody Ground, so 
great were still the sufferings of the brave men 
and braver women who were still giving their 
lives to redeem it from darkness and blood. 
But there never was the slightest doubt in Miss 
Judy’s mind that these gentle-people coming 
now were braver than any who had come be- 
fore — the bravest because they were the gen- 
tlest. It always made her own gentle heart 
beat, as if to strains of martial music, to be told 
in the little mother’s soft voice of the leaving 
of the broad-horn’s frail protection, and of the 
undaunted plunge into the depths of the wil- 
derness. Yet there were dangers there to be 
met which courage itself must flee from. These 
fearless Virginians who did not shrink from 
facing savages, nor from encountering wild 
beasts, shrank and fled appalled before the more 
frightful dangers then lurking all along the 
banks of the lower Ohio. There, hidden under 

lO 


The Little Sisters 


the beauty of the almost tropical vegetation, was 
the hideous rack of the fever and ague, waiting 
ready to torture the strength out of the men, 
the heart out of the women, and the very lives 
out of the children. There, beneath the noble 
trees and above the wide open spaces, rolling 
like gentle prairies — sunlit, flower filled, so 
richly covered with wild strawberries that the 
horses’ hoofs were dyed rosy-red — there the 
deadly mystery of “ the milk-sickness ” was 
already spreading its invisible shroud over the 
whole beautiful land. 

Fleeing from these perils more to be feared 
than the cruelest savages, and more to be 
dreaded than the fiercest wild beasts, the travel- 
lers went further into the heart of the wilderness, 
seeking the safety of higher ground ; on and on, 
following the buffalo tracks which still traversed 
the country from end to end like broad, hard- 
beaten highways. One of these led them along 
a range of hills and into a fertile little valley, 
and it was here that the Virginians finally found 
a resting-place. It was here in this vale of rest, 
folded between these quiet hills, that the village 
of Oldfield grew out of that settlement, and here 
that it stands to-day scarcely altered from its 
beginning. Over the hills — thereon the east 
where tender green of the crowning trees melts 
into the tenderer blue of the arching clouds — 
there still lies the untouched strip of broad 
brown earth, which the people of to-day call the 
Wilderness Road, just as those wandering Vir- 
ginians called it when they first found it. 


Oldfield 


The forest crowded close to the valley, but 
the sun shone bright where the giant trees 
stood farther apart. Then the skies of Ken- 
tucky were as blue as the skies of Italy, just 
as they are now, so that the sunshine and the 
peace of the spot, and the pure air of the 
wooded hills, gave the wayfarers heart to be- 
lieve themselves safe from the terrors of the 
Ohio. The homes which they built were all 
humble enough, the merest cabins of rough 
logs, since they had nothing else wherewith to 
build. Major Bramwell’s house was no better 
than the rest. Like most of the settlers’ cabins 
it had two low, large rooms with a closed pas- 
sage between and a loft above. But it is the 
mistress who makes the real home, — wherever 
reared ; the mere building of it has little to do 
with its making. And the softest little woman, 
who is neither very brilliant nor very wise, can 
work miracles for her husband and her children, 
no matter where her wings may rest upon the 
earth. This one, softer and less wise than many, 
not only made a real home of perfect refinement 
out of that log hut in the wilderness, but she 
reared her daughters — amongst white men 
rougher than the wild beasts, and near red men 
infinitely fiercer — as gently as any royal prin- 
cesses were ever trained in any old palace for 
the gracing of courts. 

It was easy enough to train Miss Judy, whose 
nature responded to exquisiteness as an aeolian 
harp responds to the breeze. Miss Sophia was 
different, but the little mother did not live long 
12 


The Little Sisters 


enough to find it out. Perhaps no true mother 
ever lives long enough to find anything lacking 
in her child. Miss Sophia was standing on 
the threshold of womanhood, and Miss Judy 
had barely crossed it, when the little mother 
died, worn out by hardship and broken-hearted 
by exile, but cheerful and uncomplaining to the 
last, as such mothers always are. 

Is it not amazing that a small, soft woman 
can leave such a large, hard void in the world ? 
Is it not bewildering to learn, as most of us do, 
sooner or later, that those whom we have always 
believed we were taking care of, were really 
stronger than ourselves, and that we have always 
leaned on them. The very foundations of life 
seem falling away, when the truth first comes 
home to the heart. No one knew what Major 
Bramwell felt or thought when the gentle wife 
who had yielded in everything first left him to 
stand alone. He was naturally a silent, re- 
served man, and misfortune had embittered 
him. Within the year following her death he 
returned to Virginia for a visit, apparently 
unable to endure the exile without her. His 
daughters were lonely too, but they were glad 
to have him go. That is. Miss Judy was glad, 
and Miss Sophia was always pleased with any- 
thing that pleased Miss Judy. They were still 
content, believing him to be happier, when the 
visit went on into the second year, and even 
into the third. But as the fourth and the fifth 
passed, they grew anxious, and the neighbors 
wondered, and gradually began to shake their 


Oldfield 


heads. News travelled slowly over the Alle- 
ghanies even yet, but it was whispered at last 
that the major would never come back, — that 
he could not, — because he had been arrested 
for old debts left unpaid when he came to Ken- 
tucky, and that he was thus held “ within 
prison bounds.” 

The Oldfield people could never tell whether 
the sisters were awAre of the truth. The neigh- 
bors noticed that as the years went by Miss 
Judy said less and less about his coming back, 
though she spoke of him as often and as proudly 
as ever, and that Miss Sophia, who never had 
much to say about anything, now rarely men- 
tioned her father at all. They heard from him, 
however, at long intervals. The neighbors were 
sure of so much concerning the major, by 
reason of Miss Judy’s being sometimes com- 
pelled to borrow the two bits to pay the post- 
age on the letter. Nothing else ever forced 
her to borrow, though she had not a penny to 
call her own for weeks together, and Miss 
Sophia — poor soul — never had one. Every- 
body in Oldfield knew when anybody got a 
letter. The stage carrying the mail came twice 
a week. The postmaster, who was also a tailor, 
always locked the door of his little shop as soon 
as he had taken the mail-bag inside. He could 
not read writing very readily, and he did not 
wish to be hurried. The villagers fumed out- 
side as they looked through the one smoky, 
broken window, and saw him deliberately spell- 
ing out his own letters, sitting down with his 
H 


The Little Sisters 


teet on the stove. In the winter when the days 
were short, and it began to grow dark early, 
they used to stuff something into the stovepipe 
which came out of a broken pane, so that the 
smoke soon compelled him to open the door. 
In the summer the heat prevented the post- 
master’s keeping the door closed for any great 
length of time ; but no matter what the season 
most of the Oldfield people were waiting when 
the mail came ; consequently, everybody knew 
what everybody else received. And then Miss 
Judy used to give out kind messages to the 
neighbors from her father’s letters; messages 
which did not sound at all like the major. But 
Miss Judy was wholly unconscious that her own 
sweetness colored whatever it may have been 
that her father had really written. She was 
as unconscious of this as of any reason that 
she herself might have had for growing sour, 
as her lovely youth faded, neglected like the 
wild flowers blooming unseen in the shadowy 
woods. 

The quiet lives of the little sisters thus went 
on uneventfully from youth to maturity. They 
were as utterly alpne, so far as association with 
their own class was concerned, as if they had 
lived on a desert island. Only the occasional 
letter from their father marked the passing of 
the years. They were sheltered by the old log 
house, and they subsisted somehow on what 
grew from its bit of ground. It was the same 
now that it had always been ; it was still the 
same, except that the little sisters had passed 
IS 


Oldfield 


unawares into middle age, when they heard 
that their father was dead. 

No one ever knew whether the daughters 
were told the whole sad truth : that this gallant 
old soldier of the Revolution, who had done 
much for the winning of Independence, had 
died in prison bounds for debts which he was 
never able to pay. Miss Judy’s beautiful eyes 
were dim with weeping for a long time. Miss 
Sophia was sad for many months through sym- 
pathy with her sister’s grief. Miss Judy took 
the purple bow off Miss Sophia’s cap and a 
blue one off her own and dyed them black. 
Their Sunday coats, as they called two thread- 
bare bombazines, were black already, and their 
everyday coats had also been black before turn- 
ing brown. So that those two poor little bits 
of lutestring ribbon were the only outward 
signs of new bereavement. 


i6 


II 


THE OLDFIELD PEOPLE 

Living was leisurely down in the Pennyroyal 
Region of those old days. About the middle 
of the last century, some twenty years after the 
major’s death, the weeks and months and years 
went by so quietly that his daughters grew old 
without knowing it. 

No one indeed ever thought of Miss Judy as 
old. Charm so purely spiritual as hers has 
never any age. And then it would seem as if 
an element of perpetual youth often lingers to 
the last around a lovable unmarried woman as 
it rarely does around the married. The rose 
keeps its beauty and sweetness longest when 
left to fade ungathered. 

Possibly Miss Judy may have been a shade 
slighter than she had been twenty years before, 
although she was never much stouter than a 
willow twig. Her hair can hardly have been 
/whiter than it had been ever since anybody 
could remember, and it was just as curly, too, 
notwithstanding that she tried harder every 
day to brush it till it was prim and smooth, as 
she thought white hair should be. 

Miss Sophia had never seemed very young, 
and she now appeared little if at all older. Her 
dark hair never whitened, and if the gray 
streaks over her placid temples had broadened 
c 17 


Oldfield 


slightly, it was no more trouble than it used to 
be to reach up the chimney and get a bit of 
soot on the tip of her finger — while Miss Judy 
was out of the room or looking the other way. 
It was an innocent artifice, but it remained 
always the darkest secret between the sisters. 
And this was probably not quite so dark a 
secret as Miss Sophia supposed it to be, since 
she, being so very plump, could not stand on 
tiptoe to look in the mirror, as Miss Judy did. 
Consequently, it was perhaps inevitable that the 
touching up intended for the gray streaks over 
Miss Sophia’s placid temples, sometimes fell 
unawares on her honest little cheeks, or her 
guileless little ears. 

Almost unaltered as the sisters were, their 
environment was, if possible, even less changed 
by the quiet passing of the uneventful years. 
For all outward changes, this March morning 
on which Miss Judy looked out over the sleep- 
ing village might have been the first morning 
after the first settlers had made their homes in 
this vale of peace. The folding hills were yet 
covered by the primeval forest. The log 
houses built by the Virginians still straggled 
beside a single thoroughfare. The highway, 
too, was the same buffalo track which they 
had followed through the wilderness — just as 
crooked in its direction, just as irregular in its 
width, just as muddy in winter and dusty in 
summer, and it was called the “ big road ” now, 
just as it had been in the beginning. And the 
sleepers in the still darkened houses were, with 


The Oldfield People 


scarcely an exception, the descendants of the 
sounder sleepers in the graveyard on the 
furthest, highest hilltop. For the people of 
that far-off Pennyroyal Region came and went 
in those old days only with the coming and the 
going of the generations. 

The night’s shadows still lingered among the 
great, black tree-trunks draping the leafless 
boughs, but the sun’s radiant lances were already 
lifting the white mists from the lowlands. Soft 
sounds coming up from the silent fields echoed 
the gentle, awakening of flocks and herds, deep- 
ening, as the light brightened, into the eternal 
matin appeal of the dumb creature to human 
brotherhood. The birds alone were all wide 
awake and vividly astir. Flocks of plovers 
w'heeled white-winged across the low-hung sky. 
A lonely sparrow-hawk swung high on seem- 
ingly motionless pinions. There were redbirds, 
too, and bluebirds and blackbirds — pewees, 
thrushes, vireos, kingfishers — all flocking in 
with the red and gold of the sunrise, making 
the dun meadows bright and melodious with 
their plumage and song. Miss Judy saw and 
heard them in pleased surprise. She could not 
recall having seen any of them that season, 
save two or three melancholy robins, drooping 
in the cold rain of the previous day. But here 
they all were, and singing as if they had no 
doubt that spring had come, however doubtful 
mere mortals might be. 

It was light enough now to see the tavern 
which stood on the edge of the village. The 
19 


Oldfield 


sign of the tavern, a big rusty bell hung in a 
rough, rickety wooden frame, stood clear against 
the gray horizon, dangling its rotting rope, which 
few travellers ever came to pull. 

The court-house and the jail faced the tavern 
from the other side of the big road. The 
court-house, with its stately little pillars and 
its queer little cupola, looked like some small 
and shabby old gentleman in a very high, very 
tight stock. There were two terms of circuit 
court, lasting about a month, one in the spring 
and one in the fall. The quarterly and the 
county courts convened at stated periods. The 
magistrate’s court, which was also in the court- 
house, was held usually and almost exclusively 
as the peace of the colored population might 
require. Fortunately, the magistrate was re- 
garded with a good deal of wholesome awe, 
and it was fortunate that he lived in the vil- 
lage, inasmuch as his pacific services were 
likely to be needed at irregular and unexpected 
times. The county judge, however, found it 
entirely convenient to live in the country, on 
a farm near Oldfield, though he rode into the 
village and spent an hour or so in his office 
nearly every day. Judge John Stanley of the 
higher court lived a long way off, quite on the 
other side of the district, coming and going 
twice a year with the convening and adjourn- 
ment of the spring and fall terms. He had 
lived in Oldfield when a young man, and up to 
the time that a terrible thing had happened. 
He was not to blame, yet it had blighted his 
20 


The Oldfield People 


whole life ; it had driven him in horror away 
from the place which he had loved. It was a 
great loss to him to be separated from Miss 
Judy, the only mother he had known. But he 
used to return to Oldfield now and then until 
another misfortune made the place forever un- 
endurable to him. After this only the drag of 
his duty and his fondness for Miss Judy ever 
brought him back, and he went away again as 
soon as he could. He always called upon her 
when he came, and always went to bid her 
good-by before going away ; but he visited no 
one else and knew nothing of the village out- 
side the strict line of his official duties. 

Adjoining the court-house was the county 
jail, a tumble-down pile of mossy brick. Only 
the bars across the window indicated the char- 
acter of the building. A prisoner was occa- 
sionally enterprising enough to pull out the 
bars, but they were always put in again sooner 
or later. There were two rooms, one above 
and one below, with a movable ladder between. 
When, at long and rare intervals a stranger was 
brought to the jail as a prisoner, he was put in 
the upper room and — as an extreme measure 
of precaution — the ladder was taken away dur- 
ing the night. Both the rooms were apt to be 
chilly in cold weather on account of the broken 
window-panes, yet the jail was on the whole 
more comfortable than many of the cabins in 
which the negroes lived, and any one — no 
matter what the color of his skin — can endure 
a good deal of cold without great discomfort, 


Oldfield 


when abundantly and richly fed. The jailer, 
Colonel Fielding, and his family never thought 
of taking so much trouble or of being so mean 
and selfish as to make any difference in the food 
sent to the jail and that which was served on 
their own table. Now and then in the winter 
the turkey and the pudding would, it is true, 
get rather cold in transit, the jail and the jailer’s 
residence being some distance apart; but the 
prisoners did not mind that. They used to 
stand at the windows good-humoredly hailing 
the passers-by to kill time ; and waiting with 
such patience as they could muster for the com- 
ing of the good dinner, especially when they 
knew that there was more “ quality ” company 
than usual in the jailer’s house. The colonel, 
a beautiful old man — tall, stately, clear-eyed, 
clean and upright in heart and mind and body 
— was a gentleman of the old school who had 
never earned a penny in all the days of his 
blameless life. Such a picture as he was to 
look at, with his long silver hair curling on his 
shoulders and his tall erect form draped in the 
long cloak which he wore like a Roman toga ! 

“ By the o’wars ! ” he used to declare, “ the 
older I am the faster and thicker my hair grows. 
As for my cloak — it’s the only suitable thing, 
sir, for a gentleman’s wear.” 

His house had always been the social centre 
of Oldfield. When his friends elected him to 
the office of jailer, deeming that the best and 
easiest way of providing for him, since it was 
the nearest to a sinecure afforded by county 


The Oldfield People 


politics, his family became still more active 
leaders of society. In those good old days of the 
Pennyroyal Region, a gentleman of birth and 
breeding might engage in any honest avocation, 
without the slightest injury to his social posi- 
tion. The only difference that the colonel’s 
election to the office of jailer made to his family 
and his neighbors was, that the salary enabled 
him to indulge his hospitable and generous in- 
clinations more fully. The salary was small, to 
be sure, but it was more than he had ever had 
before. About this time, too, the colonel’s five 
beautiful daughters — all famous beauties — 
were in the perfection of bloom, and none of 
them had yet married, thus beginning the break- 
ing up of the happy home. Such dinners, such 
suppers, such dances as there were in that plain 
old house ! The colonel’s handsome, indolent, 
sweet-tempered wife used to say that they were 
always ready for company, because they had 
the best they could get every day. Usually 
there was not the slightest conflict between the 
colonel’s large social obligations and his small 
official duties. On the contrary, the more fine 
dinners and suppers he gave the higher the 
prisoners lived, and the happier everybody was. 
In fact, the colored vagrant who managed to get 
into the jail when winter was near — when 
there were no vegetables in anybody’s garden, 
no fruit in anybody’s orchard, no green corn in 
anybody’s field — was regarded by his fellows 
as very fortunate indeed. 

It chanced, however, that a wandering stranger 
23 


Oldfield 


was one day locked in among the prisoners who 
were otherwise all home-folks. On that very 
evening the Fielding girls were giving a grand 
ball and supper, to which the whole fashion of 
the county was invited. The prisoners, with 
the exception of the stranger, were as deeply 
interested in what they saw and heard of the 
great stir of preparation as the guests could 
possibly have been. The stranger probably 
knew nothing of his companions’ glowing and 
confident expectation of a generous share of the 
feast. If they told him anything of the feasting 
which the next day was sure to bring, he either 
did not believe it, naturally enough — having 
had most likely some experience with jails 
and jailers — or he preferred liberty to luxury. 
At all events on that eventful evening the colo- 
nel, whose mind was full of the ball, incidentally 
forgot to lock the door of the jail. The strange 
prisoner had, therefore, nothing to do but to 
open the door as soon as the jailer’s back was 
turned ; and this he did at once, disappearing 
in the darkness, never to be seen or heard of 
again. The other prisoners had tried to pre- 
vent his going, and they now did their utmost 
to give the alarm. They hallooed long and 
loud at the top of their strong lungs. But the 
wind was blowing hard in the wrong direction, 
the jail was too far from the house, and they 
could not make themselves heard above the 
music and dancing and laughter and drink- 
ing of toasts. Finally one of them, who was 
a sort of leader because he wintered regularly 


The Oldfield People 


in the jail, offered to go to the colonel’s house 
in order to let him know what had occurred. 
And he did go — willingly too — although the 
night was very cold and very dark, and the mud 
so deep that the very bottom seemed to have 
dropped out of the big road. The colonel him- 
self with his youngest daughter was leading the 
Virginia reel, and just going down the middle to 
the tune of Old Dan Tucker; so that the bearer 
of the evil tidings had to wait a few moments 
looking in on the ball before he found a chance 
to tell his story. It was a cruel blow to come 
at such a time, and the colonel felt it sorely. 
The prisoner reported to his companions, after 
his return alone to the jail, that he thought 
“ Marse Joe was about to swear” then and 
there. It was in vain that the colonel’s guests 
hastened to reassure him ; to tell him that it 
would be a great saving to the county — so all 
the gentlemen said — if every one of the lazy 
black rascals could be induced to run away. 
But the colonel felt the wound to his pride. It 
was a matter touching his honor. And finally, 
finding him inflexible in his determination to 
do his duty under the circumstances, the men 
present offered — almost to a man — to go with 
him when he went to search for the fugitive ; 
and they kept their word on the following day 
about noon when the sun was warmest, just to 
please the colonel, although they knew before- 
hand how futile the pursuit would be with vast 
canebrakes near by and the Cypress Swamp just 
beyond the hills. 


25 


Oldfield 


That memorable night of the ball was long, 
long past when this March morning dawned. 
The colonel was very old now and very feeble, 
with dimmed memories and utterly alone. He 
had lost his wife years before. His five beautiful 
daughters were married and gone. Alice, the 
most beautiful of all, the youngest, the brightest, 
the highest” spirited, was dead after the wreck- 
ing of her young life. The old man had aged 
and failed rapidly since Alice’s death. He, who 
used to be so cheerful, sat brooding at first, 
turning his aching memories this way and that 
way, trying to see whether he might not have 
done something to prevent the soft-hearted 
child from being frightened into marrying a 
man whom she feared almost as much as she 
disliked. He was always thinking about it in 
those early days after her death in the bloom of 
youth and beauty, but he rarely spoke of it even 
then, and after a time he was allowed to forget. 
Mercifully memory faded as weakness increased. 
The gentle, unhappy old man became ere long 
again a gentle, happy child, and yet — even to 
the last — when aroused to glimmering con- 
sciousness the gallant manner of the courtly 
gentleman of the old school came back. Miss 
Judy thought she had never seen so polished a 
bearing as the colonel’s had been and would be 
— in a way — as long as he lived. She won- 
dered uneasily that morning, as she looked 
toward his house, whether the servants took 
good care of him ; and she made up her mind 
to be more watchful of him herself. She was 

26 


The Oldfield People 


much afraid that the rain might make his 
rheumatism worse. 

Next to the colonel’s, coming down the big 
road, was the Gordon place, the largest and 
best kept in the village. The house was a low 
rambling structure of logs, whitewashed inside 
and out. The rooms had been added at ran- 
dom as suited the comfort and convenience of 
the family. It was not the habit of the Old- 
field people to consider appearances. It was 
not the habit of the widow Gordon to consider 
anything but her own wishes. It may have 
been on account of this imperiousness, this 
open and scornful disregard of everything and 
everybody except herself and her own comfort, 
that she was always called “ old lady Gordon ” 
behind her back. She lived alone with a large 
retinue of servants in the comfortable old house, 
spending her days in a state of mental and phys- 
ical semi-coma from over-eating and over-sleep- 
ing, using both like lethean drugs. Miss Judy 
alone sometimes thought that old lady Gordon 
so used them and pitied her. Old lady Gordon, 
who had a strong keen sense of humor, almost 
masculine in its robustness, would have laughed 
at the idea of Miss Judy’s pity. She was the 
richest member of that community in which all 
living was simple, and in which the extremes 
of riches and poverty were not known as they 
are known to the greater world. Most of the 
Oldfield people dwelt contentedly in the middle 
estate which the wisest of men prayed for. 
None was poorer than Miss Judy, who had 
27 


Oldfield 


only a pittance of a pension, the old house, and 
the scrap of earth ; none, that is, except Sidney 
Wendall, who, although she owned the log cabin 
which sheltered her family and the bit of garden 
lying by its side, had not a penny of income for 
the support of her three children, her husband’s 
brother, and herself. Yet Miss Judy managed 
to provide for Miss Sophia — and herself also 
as an afterthought; and Sidney provided for 
her family without difficulty, though in both 
cases a steady, strenuous effort was required. 

Among the few who were really well-to-do, 
were Tom Watson and Anne his wife. Their 
house, facing Miss Judy’s across the big road, 
was rather more modern than the rest of the 
Oldfield houses, and it was better furnished. 
And yet as Miss Judy looked at its closed 
blinds she sighed, thinking how little money 
had to do with happiness, when it could give 
no relief from pain of mind or body. More 
than a year had dragged by since the master 
of that darkened household had been brought 
home after the accident which had crushed the 
great, strong, passionate, undisciplined, good- 
hearted giant into a helpless, hopeless paralytic 
— as the lightning fells the mighty oak in full- 
est leaf. The mistress of the stricken home had 
always been what the Oldfield people called a 
“ still-tongued ” woman, and she was now become 
more silent than ever. The house had never 
been a cheerful one, save as the noisy master 
blustered in and out. Now it was sad indeed: 
now that both husband and wife knew that he 
28 


The Oldfield People 


could never be any better, never otherwise than 
he was, although he might live for years. 

Miss Judy wondered as she gazed, whether 
Doctor Alexander, living a little further along 
the big road, had yet told Anne the whole 
truth. After a moment she was sure that he had 
not. He was the kindest of bluff-spoken men. 
And what would be the use — since neither 
Anne nor the doctor nor the power of the whole 
world of sympathy or science could do anything 
more ? She was glad to see the doctor’s curtains 
still drawn. He needed all the rest he could 
get; he was always overworked in his practice 
for twenty miles around. And Mrs. Alexander, 
the doctor’s wife, was one of the rare kind, who 
are always ready to sleep when other people are 
sleepy and to breakfast when other people are 
hungry: a much rarer kind, as even Miss Judy 
knew, unworldly as she was, than the kind who 
always expect others to be sleepy when 
wish to sleep and to be ready to eat when 
fAejy are hungry. 

In the unpainted, tumble-down house next to 
the doctor’s, somebody was awake and stirring. 
Miss Judy guessed it to be Kitty Mills, and she 
knew it was more than likely that the poor 
woman had not been in bed at all. It was 
nothing uncommon for old man Mills, Kitty’s 
father-in-law, to keep her busy in waiting upon 
him the whole night through. It was utterly 
impossible for Kitty, or anybody else, to please 
him, but Kitty never seemed to mind in the 
least ; she merely laughed and tried again — 

29 


Oldfield 


over and over with untiring kindness and un- 
flagging patience. Miss Judy never knew quite 
what to make of Kitty Mills, though she had 
lived just across the big road from her through 
all these years. Miss Judy could understand 
submission without resistance easily enough; 
she had submitted to a good many hard things 
herself, without a murmur. But she could not 
comprehend the acceptance of unkindness and 
injustice and ingratitude and endless toil and 
hardship with actual hilarity, as Kitty Mills ac- 
cepted all of these things, day in and day out, 
year after year. And there she was now sing- 
ing, blithe as a lark ! Well, such a disposition 
as Kitty’s was a good gift. Miss Judy thought 
almost enviously, as though her own disposition 
were very bad indeed. Then she began to re- 
proach herself for uncharitable thoughts of old 
man Mills’s daughters. They may have had 
their reasons for bringing their father to Kitty’s 
house to be nursed by her, instead of nursing 
him themselves. Perhaps they had brought him 
because they believed Kitty would take better 
care of him than they could, knowing how faith- 
fully she had nursed their mother who had been 
unable to leave her bed for years, and, indeed, 
up to her death, only a few months before. We 
cannot look into one another’s hearts, so Miss 
Judy reminded herself. No doubt we should 
judge more justly if we could. And Sam, 
Kitty’s husband, was really a good, kind man, 
and maybe he would work sometimes were it 
not for the misery in his back, which always 
30 


The Oldfield People 


grew worse whenever work was even mentioned 
in his presence. Still Miss Judy could not see, 
try as she might, how Kitty Mills could laugh 
till she cried, when old man Mills snatched 
up the dinner which she had cooked on a hot 
day and flung it out the window — dishes and 
all. 

Looking farther along the big road. Miss 
J udy saw that the Pettuses also were awake and 
stirring about. The bachelor brother and the 
maiden sister were both early risers. Mr. Pettus 
kept the general store, and he liked to have it 
open and ready for trade when the farmers tak- 
ing grain and tobacco to market drove the big- 
wheeled wagons with their swaying ox-teams 
through the village on the way to the river. 
Miss Pettus arose with the first chicken that 
took its head from under its wing, her main in- 
terest in life being concentrated in the poultry- 
yard. She always held that any one having to 
do with hens must be up before the sun ; and 
she used to tell Miss Judy a great deal about 
the Individuality of Hens, the subject with which 
she was best acquainted and upon which she dis- 
coursed most entertainingly and instructively. 
Miss Judy always listened with much interest 
and entire seriousness. Gentle Miss Judy had 
not a very keen sense of humor ; it is doubtful 
if any really sweet woman ever had. 

“ The folks who think all hens are alike except 
the difference that the feathers make outside, 
don’t know what they are talking about ! ” Miss 
Pettus once said, in her excited way. “ Hens are 
31 


Oldfield 


as different inside as folks are. Some hens are 
silly and some have got plenty of sense, only 
they’re stubborn. There’s that yellow-legged 
pullet of mine. She's so silly that she is just as 
liable to lay in the horse-trough as in her nice, 
clean nest. Every blessed morning, rain or shine, 
unless I’m up and on the spot before she can get 
into the trough, old Baldy eats an egg with his 
hay, and I’m expecting every day that he’ll eat 
her. And there’s that old dorminica, the one 
that Kitty Mills cheated me with when we 
swapped hens that time. Well, the old dor- 
minica ain’t a bit silly. She’s just out and out 
contrary. The great, lazy, fat thing ! Set she 
wont — do what I will! And Kitty Mills 
knew she wouldn’t — knew it just as well when 
we swapped as I know it this minute. There’s 
no use trying to persuade me that she didn’t. 
It’s awful aggravating, because the dorminica’s 
the heaviest hen I’ve got. Well, night before 
last I made up my mind that I’d make her set, 
whether she wanted to or not. When it began 
to get dark and she sauntered off to go to roost, 
I caught her and put her down on a nest full of 
fine, fresh eggs — set her down real firm and 
determined, like that — as much as to say ‘ we’ll 
see whether you don’t stay there,’ and then I 
turned a box over her so that she couldn’t get 
out if she tried. But I couldn’t help feeling 
kind of uneasy, with fresh eggs gone up so 
high, clear to ten cents a dozen. The next 
morning at break o’ day, cold and rainy as it 
was, I put on my overshoes and threw my 


The Oldfield People 


shawl over my head, and went to take a peep 
under the box. And there — you’ll hardly be- 
lieve it, Miss Judy, but I give you my word as a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church — 
there was that old dorminica a-standing up ! ” 

Miss Judy had said at the time what a shame 
it was to waste nice eggs so, and she had spoken 
with sincere feeling. She had been cherishing 
a secret hope that she might get a few eggs 
from Miss Pettus to complete a setting for 
Speckle. Miss Judy had saved ten eggs with 
great care, keeping them wrapped in a flannel 
petticoat ; but Speckle, the docile and industri- 
ous, could easily cover fifteen and was quite 
willing to do it. Now, Miss Judy’s hope was 
lost through the dorminica’s contrariness. She 
thought about this .again with a pang of disap- 
pointment, as she heard the cackling and con- 
fusion going on in the Pettus poultry-yard, 
which told the whole neighborhood that Miss 
Pettus was wide awake and actively pursuing 
her chosen walk in life. 

Sidney Wendall, the widow, was another early 
riser, as one needs be when earning a living 
for a whole family by one’s wits. Sidney’s 
house, the poorest and smallest of all the village, 
was the last at that end of the big road, and 
stood higher than the others, far up on the hill- 
side. As Miss Judy looked toward it that 
morning, she was not thinking of Sidney but of 
Doris, her daughter, whom Miss Judy loved as 
her own child. At the very thought of Doris a 
new light came into her blue eyes and a lovelier 
D 33 


Oldfield 


flush overspread her fair cheeks. She stood 
still for a moment, gazing wistfully, waiting and 
longing for the far-off glimpse of Doris, which 
nearly always sweetened the beginning of the 
day. On that wet March morning there was 
no flutter of a little white apron, no sign of a 
wafted kiss. Miss Judy sighed gently as her 
gaze came back to her own yard. There were 
two japonica bushes, one standing on either 
side of the front gate, and as Miss Judy now 
glanced at them she was startled to see what 
seemed to be a roseate mist floating among the 
bare, brown branches, still dripping and shining 
with the night’s rain. 


34 


Ill 


PHASES OF VILLAGE LIFE 

A ROSY mist often floated between Miss J udy 
and the bare, brown things of life. She knew 
it, realizing fully how many mistakes she made 
in seldom seeing things as they actually were. 
She had never been able to trust her own eyes, 
and now they were not even as strong as they 
used to be, although they were as blue as ever. 
The japonica bushes were only a few paces dis- 
tant, the front yard being but the merest strip 
of earth ; yet the ground was very wet, and 
Miss Judy was wearing prunella gaiters. They 
were the only shoes she had ; they were also 
the only kind she had ever known a lady to 
wear. Shoes made of leather, however fine, 
would have seemed to Miss Judy — had she 
known anything about them — as much too 
heavy, too stiff, and altogether too clumsy for 
the delicate, soundless step of a gentlewoman. 

Moving out on the sunken stone of the door- 
step, she was still unable to tell with certainty 
whether the japonicas were actually budding. 
She stood peering helplessly, almost frowning 
in her effort to see. It was really important 
that she should know as soon as possible. The 
coming of spring was important to everybody 
in the Pennyroyal Region, where every man 
was a farmer — the merchant, the lawyer, the 
35 


Oldfield 


doctor, and even the minister ; and where every 
woman had a garden, large and rich like old 
lady Gordon’s, or small and poor as Miss Judy’s 
was. And the buds of the japonica were the 
gay little heralds of the spring, coming clad all 
in scarlet satin, while the rest of nature wore 
dull and sombre robes. Flashing out from their 
dark hiding-places at the first touch of the sun, 
the sight of them stirred the ladies of Oldfield 
as nothing else ever did. The men, too, always 
noticed this first sign of spring’s approach. But 
it was the burning of the tobacco-beds on the 
wooded hillsides, the floating of long, thin 
banners of pale blue smoke across a wintry sky, 
which moved the men. It was only in the breasts 
of the gentle gardeners of Oldfield that the 
bursting forth of the japonica buds, these vivid 
points of flame, always fired a perennial ambi- 
tion. For the housewife who could send a 
neighbor the earliest cool, green lettuce, or the 
first warm, red radishes might well be a proud 
woman, and was a personage to be looked up 
to and to be envied during all the rest of the 
year. And was it not rather a pretty ambition 
and even a laudable one.? Have not most of 
us noted pettier ambitions and far less laudable 
ones in a much larger world .? 

Aside from this public and universal interest 
and anxiety concerning gardening time. Miss 
Judy had good private reasons for wishing to 
get an early start. Early vegetables were more 
profitable than late ones in Oldfield as elsewhere. 
Of course Miss Judy never thought of selling 
36 


Phases of Village Life 

any of the things that grew in her little garden. 
She would have been shocked at the suggestion. 
No one in Oldfield ever sold anything, except 
Mr. Pettus, who kept the general store, and who 
sold everything that the Oldfield people needed. 
It is true that Miss Judy had a regular engage- 
ment with Mr. Pettus to exchange green stuff 
for sugar or knitting materials, or a yard of 
white muslin to make Miss Sophia a tucker, 
or a bit of net to freshen her cap, and occasion- 
ally even some trifle for herself. That, how- 
ever, was an entirely different matter from 
vulgarly selling things. Mr. Pettus understood 
the difference quite as clearly as Miss Judy did, 
and he always took the greatest pains to show 
his appreciation of her thoughtful condescen- 
sion in letting him have the vegetables. He 
was always most generous too in these delicate 
and complicated transactions. It upset Miss 
Judy somewhat, at first, to find him willing to 
give more sugar for onions than for genteeler 
vegetables, especially in the spring. But it was 
never hard for Miss Judy to give up when no 
real principle was involved ; and necessity makes 
most of us do certain things which we dis- 
approve of. So that, sighing gently. Miss Judy 
squeezed her heart’s-ease and mignonette into 
a smaller space, and planted more onion-sets. 

She was thinking about those onion-sets as 
she looked at the japonica bushes, trying to see 
whether they were actually budding. She could 
not, as a lady, admit even to herself how largely 
her sister’s living depended upon the ignoble 
37 


Oldfield 


bulbs even more than upon the refined produce 
of the little garden. Her own living also de- 
pended upon this bit of earth ; but that was not 
nearly so important, from her point of view. 
Miss Sophia came first in everything, even in 
the annual consideration of the problem of the 
onion-sets. Miss Judy, thinking that the house 
in which gentlewomen lived should never smell 
of anything but dried rose leaves, asked Miss 
Sophia if she did not think the same. Miss 
Sophia, who had thought nothing about it, and 
who objected to the odor of onions only be- 
cause it made her very hungry, answered 
“Just so, sister Judy,” very promptly and very 
decisively, as she always answered everything 
that Miss Judy said. Consequently the tidy 
calico bag containing the onion-sets was ban- 
ished to the kitchen for the winter, to be- 
come a source of secret uneasiness to Miss 
Judy the whole season through. Merica, the 
cook, was not so dependable a personage as 
Miss Judy could have wished her to be. There 
was indeed something disturbingly uncertain in 
her very name. Miss Judy always thought it 
must be ^-merica, but Merica always stoutly 
insisted that her whole real true name was 
Mericus - V es- Pat-rick -One- of - the -Earliest - Set- 
tlers-of- Kentucky, and Miss Judy gave up all 
further discussion of the subject simply because 
she was overwhelmed, not because she was 
convinced. 

Remembering that the onion-sets had been 
quite safe when she last looked at them. Miss 
38 


Phases of Village Life 

Judy felt a renewed anxiety to know certainly 
whether the japonicas were budding. And the 
only way to know was to get her father’s far- 
off spectacles. These were privately used by 
both the little sisters upon great emergencies, 
such as this was. But they had never been 
put on by either in public ; and Miss Judy was 
much startled at the thought of putting them 
on at the front door. Moreover, they were 
always kept carefully hidden in the left-hand 
corner, at the very back of the top drawer of 
the chest of drawers in the little sisters’ room, 
and Miss Sophia was still asleep. Miss Judy 
could tell by the way the sun touched the 
sunken stone of the doorstep that it wanted 
two or three minutes of the time when she 
always rolled the cannon-ball which held the 
door open, as a polite hint to Miss Sophia to 
get up. Under the unusual circumstances, 
however. Miss Judy felt justified in rolling it 
at once. It was a big ball weighing twenty-five 
pounds, and it was a good deal battered by 
distinguished service. It had come indeed 
from the battle-field at New Orleans, and there 
was a tradition that it was the identical cannon- 
ball which had killed the British general. Miss 
Judy, however, could never be brought to enter- 
tain any such dreadful belief. She was quite 
content and very, very proud to know beyond a 
shadow of a doubt that many of those gallant 
Kentuckians who rushed in at the last desper- 
ate moment — travel-worn, starving, ragged, and 
armed only with hunters’ rifles — to do such 
39 


Oldfield 


val'.ant service in turning the tide of that mo- 
mentous battle, were true sons of the Penny- 
royal Region. Miss Judy was aware of the 
strange and unaccountable misstatement con- 
cerning the conduct of the Kentuckians, made 
by General Jackson in his report of the battle. 
But she was also aware that the general — who 
was not as a rule very quick to take things back 
— had corrected that misstatement so promptly 
and so thoroughly, that it had not been neces- 
sary for General Adair to ride from Kentucky 
to New Orleans to fight a duel with him about 
the slander, although that gallant Kentuckian 
was all ready and eager to go. 

And was there not also that remarkable 
song, celebrating the part taken by “ The 
Hunters of Kentucky” in the battle of New 
Orleans .? Everybody was singing it when Miss 
Judy was a girl ; and although she could not sing 
she had often hummed the ringing chorus : — 

Oh, dear Kentucky, 

The Hunters of Kentucky ; 

Dear old Kentucky, 

The Hunters of Kentucky.’* 

And she had even repeated the five stirring 
verses without making a single mistake : — 

You’ve read I reckon, in the prints, 

How Pakenham attempted 

To make Old Hickory wince 
But soon his scheme repented ; 

For we with rifles ready cocked. 

Thought such occasion lucky ; 

And soon around our general flocked 
The Hunters of Kentucky. 

40 


Phases of Village Life 


The British felt so very sure 
The battle they would win it, 
Americans could not endure 
The battle not a minute ; 

And Pakenharn he made his brag 
If he in fight was lucky, 

He’d have the girls and cotton bags 
In spite of old Kentucky. 

‘‘ But Jackson he was wide awake 
And not scared at trifles, 

For well he knew what aim to take 
With our Kentucky rifles ; 

He led us to the cypress swamp, 

The ground was low and mucky. 
There stood John Bull in martial pomp 
And here was old Kentucky. 

** A bank was raised to hide our breast — 
Not that we thought of dying — 

But we liked firing from a rest 
Unless the game was flying ; 

Behind it stood our little force, 

None wished that it were greater. 

For every man was half a horse 
And half an alligator. 

‘‘They did not our patience tire. 

Before they showed their faces. 

We did not choose to waste our fire. 

So snugly kept our places ; 

^ut when no more we saw them blink 

^ We thought it time to stop ’em — 

It would have done you good, I think, 
To see Kentucky drop ’em.’* 


Then gentle Miss Judy, repeating these lines, 
used to grow almost bloodthirsty in trying to 
repeat the things which she had heard her father 

41 


Oldfield 


say about this, — the part played by the hunters 
of Kentucky at the battle of New Orleans, — as 
having been the first recognition of marksman- 
ship in warfare. Miss Judy had no clear under- 
standing of what her father had meant, but 
she usually repeated what he had said about 
the sharpshooting of the hunters whenever she 
spoke of the battle. She thrilled with patriotism 
every time she touched the cannon-ball. It was 
so big that both her little hands were required 
to roll it into the hollow which it had worn in 
the floor of the passage. 

Miss Sophia obeyed the solemn rumble of 
the cannon-ball as she always obeyed every- 
thing that she understood — docile little soul. 
She was almost as slow of mind as of body. 
A round, heavy, dark, uninteresting old woman, 
utterly unlike her sister, except in gentleness 
and goodness. On Miss Sophia's side of the 
bed were three stout steps, forming a sort of 
dwarf stairway, and down this she now came 
slowly, backwards and in perfect safety. But 
Miss Sophia’s getting to the floor was yet a 
long way from being ready for breakfast. It 
was hard to see how so small a body, so simply 
clothed, could get into such an intricate tangle 
of strings and hooks and buttons on ewry morn- 
ing of her life. Miss Judy’s sweet patience never 
wavered. She never knew that she was called 
upon to exercise any toward Miss Sophia. The 
possibility of hurrying Miss Sophia did not enter 
her mind even on that urgent occasion, when 
her need of the far-off spectacles made it un- 

42 


Phases of Village Life 

commonly hard to wait. Finally, there being 
no indication of Miss Sophia’s progress, other 
than the subdued sounds of the struggle through 
which she was passing. Miss Judy timidly ap- 
proached the door of the bedroom. It was 
open, but she delicately turned her head away 
as she tapped upon it to attract Miss Sophia’s 
attention, before asking permission to come in. 
Miss Sophia invited her to enter, giving the 
permission as formally as Miss Judy had asked 
it. Miss Judy apologized as she accepted the 
invitation, saying that she hoped Miss Sophia 
would pardon her for keeping her back turned, 
which she was very, very careful to continue 
to do. She did not say what it was that she 
wanted to get out of the top drawer. The far- 
off spectacles were rarely mentioned between 
the sisters, and Miss Sophia never questioned 
anything that her sister wished to do. 

Still scrupulously averting her gaze. Miss 
Judy found what she wanted, and sidled softly 
from the room, thanking Miss Sophia and 
holding the spectacles down at her side, hid- 
den in the folds of her skirt. Stepping out on 
the door-stone, she looked cautiously up and 
down the big road. It was still deserted, not 
a human being was in sight. Only a solitary 
cow went soberly past, with her bell clanging 
not unmusically on the stillness. Nevertheless, 
Miss Judy gave another glance of precaution, 
surveying the highway from end to end from 
the tavern on the north to Sidney Wendall’s 
on the south. As the little lady’s eyes rested 
43 


Oldfield 


for a moment upon the house on the hillside, 
a girl came out as though the wistful gaze had 
drawn her forth. Miss Judy’s blue eyes could 
barely make out the slender young figure stand- 
ing in the dazzling sunlight ; but she knew that 
it was Doris, and she did not need the sight of 
her sweet old eyes to see the wafting of the kiss 
which the girl threw. Miss Judy’s own little 
hands flew up to throw two kisses in return. 
She straightway forgot all about the spectacles. 
She no longer cared how large the huge frames 
might look on her small face, nor how old they 
might make her appear. 

It was always so. At the sight of Doris, 
Miss J udy always ceased to be an old maid and 
became a young mother. For there is a mother- 
hood of the spirit as well- as the motherhood of 
the flesh, and the one may be truer than the 
other. 


44 


IV 


THE CHILD OF MISS JUDy’s HEART 

It is among the sad things of many good 
lives, that those who love each other most often 
understand each other least. 

No mother was ever truer than Sidney Wen- 
dall, so far as her light led. None ever tried 
harder to do her whole duty by her children, 
and none, perhaps, could have come nearer 
doing it by Billy and Kate, given no better 
opportunities than Sidney had. 

It was Doris, the eldest child, and the one 
whom she loved best and was proudest of — 
the darling of her heart, the very apple of her 
eye — that Sidney never knew what to do with. 
From the very cradle she had found Doris utterly 
unmanageable. Not that the child was unruly 
or self-willed ; she was ever the gentlest and 
most obedient of the three children. It was only 
that the mother and the child could not under- 
stand one another. That was all ; but it was 
enough to send Sidney, whom few difficulties 
daunted, to Miss Judy, almost in tears and quite 
in despair, while Doris was hardly beyond baby- 
hood. 

“You can always tell a body in trouble what 
to do,” she appealed to Miss Judy, “ Maybe 
you can even tell me what to do with that child. 
I know how rough I am, but I don’t know how 
45 


Oldfield 


to help it. I’m bound to bounce around and 
make a noise. I don’t know any other way of 
getting along. And then there are Billy and 
Kate. They won’t do a thing they’re told un- 
less they’re stormed at. Yet if I shout at them, 
there’s Doris turning white, and shaking, and 
looking as if she’d surely die. I tell you. Miss 
Judy, I feel as if I’d been given a fine china 
cup to tote and might break it any minute.” 

Miss Judy, the comforter of all the afflicted 
and the adviser of all the troubled, said what 
she could to help Sidney. Doris was different 
from other children. There was no doubt about 
that and about its being difficult to know how 
to deal with such a sensitive nature. Miss Judy 
said that she did not believe, however, that any 
other mother would have done any better than 
Sidney had — which comforted Sidney inex- 
pressibly. The little body could not think of 
anything to advise. She did not know much 
about children, and she had not much confi- 
dence in her own judgment in matters concern- 
ing them. So that, at last, after a long talk and 
for lack of a clearer plan. Miss Judy proposed 
that Sidney should bring Doris the next morn- 
ing when setting out on her professional round, 
and should leave the little one with Miss Sophia 
and herself. Miss Sophia might think of the 
very thing to do ; without living in the house 
with Miss Sophia it was impossible to know 
how sound and practical her judgment was — 
so Miss Judy told Sidney. The kind proposal 
lightened Sidney’s heart and she accepted it at 
46 


The Child of Miss Judy’s Heart 


once. She had her own opinion as to the value 
of Miss Sophia’s ideas, but she responded as 
she knew would please Miss Judy; and she 
was sure at all events that Miss Judy, who was 
just such another sensitive plant, would know 
what to do with Doris. 

Miss Judy on her side was not nearly so con- 
fident. When Sidney had gone and she began 
to realize what she had undertaken, she was 
a good deal frightened. She not only knew 
almost nothing about children, as she had con- 
fessed to this troubled poor mother; but she 
had always been rather afraid of them. It had 
always seemed to her an appalling responsibility 
to assume the forming of one of these impres- 
sionable little souls ; she had often wondered 
tremblingly at the lightness with which many 
mothers assumed it. And here she was — rush- 
ing voluntarily into the very responsibility which 
she had always regarded with awe — almost 
with terror. More and more disturbed and per- 
plexed as she thought of her foolish rashness, 
she nevertheless mechanically set about get- 
ting ready for taking charge of Doris during 
the next day, and perhaps for many other 
days, until she had at least tried to see what 
she could do for the child. As a first step in 
the preparation she climbed the steep stairs 
to the loft, which she had not entered for 
years, and brought down an old doll of Miss 
Sophia’s, and dusted it and straightened its anti- 
quated clothes; putting it in readiness for the 
ordeal of Doris on the following morning. 

47 


Oldfield 


“She can sit on the home-made rug, you 
know, sister Sophia,” said Miss Judy, nervously. 

“Just so, sister Judy,” promptly and firmly 
responded Miss Sophia, who never noticed 
where anybody sat. 

“ And don’t you think it would be a good 
idea to have Merica make a pig and a kitten out 
of gingerbread? They might perhaps amuse 
the child, and keep her from crying. A half 
pint of flour would be quite enough, and we 
have to have the fire anyway because it’s iron- 
ing day. Then Merica picked up a big basket 
of chips behind the cabinet-maker’s shop this 
morning.” 

“ Just so, sister Judy,” answered Miss Sophia, 
who left all provision for fire and for everything 
else wholly to her sister. “And she might 
make us some gingerbread too, while she’s 
about it.” 

“ To be sure ! ” exclaimed Miss Judy, looking 
at Miss Sophia in loving admiration. “ So she 
can. How quick you are to see the right way, 
sister Sophia. I never seem to think of things 
as you do.” 

But even as she spoke, a thought flashed un- 
easily across her mind, causing her sweet old 
face to beam less brightly. What if the child 
would not sit on the home-made rug? She 
had never been used to carpets — poor little 
thing. What if she crumbled the gingerbread 
all over everything, as Miss Judy had seen 
children do, time and again ! The thought of 
such desecration of the carpet that her mother 
48 


The Child of Miss Judy’s Heart 

had made, for which she had carded the wool 
and spun the warp and woven the woof, all 
with her own dear little hands, made Miss Judy 
feel almost faint. The risk of such danger 
threw her into more and more of a panic. She 
hardly slept that night, troubled by dread of 
what she had so thoughtfully undertaken. She 
was pale and trembling with fright when Sidney 
brought Doris and left her early on the follow- 
ing day. 

But the child sat quite still on the rug where 
her mother had placed her ; and she did not 
cry when Sidney went away, as Miss Judy 
feared she would, although her lips quivered. 
She soon turned to look at the doll, which Miss 
Judy hastened to give her to divert her atten- 
tion, — looking at it as tender little mothers look 
at afflicted babies. Then she gave her atten- 
tion to the gingerbread kitten, and, later, to the 
gingerbread pig; and Miss Judy was pleased, 
though she could hardly have told why, to notice 
that Doris ate the pig first and hesitated some 
time before eating the kitten. 

Miss Judy gave an involuntary sigh of relief 
when both the pig and the kitten had disap- 
peared without leaving a crumb. She in- 
stinctively turned toward Miss Sophia with a 
pardonable little air of triumph, and was disap- 
pointed to find her asleep in her chair. Thus 
Miss Judy and Doris were left alone together, 
and presently the quiet child lifted her grave 
brown eyes to the little lady’s anxious blue 
ones and they exchanged a first long, bashful 
£ 49 


Oldfield 


look. Doris was not old enough to remember 
what she thought of Miss Judy at that time; 
but Miss Judy always remembered how Doris 
looked — such a wonderfully beautiful, gentle 
little creature — as she sat there so gravely, 
looking up with her mites of hands folded on 
her lap. After a time, as Miss Sophia slum- 
bered peacefully on, the shy child and the shyer 
old lady began to make timid advances to one 
another. Doris undressed the forlorn old doll 
with cautious delight, and Miss Judy dressed it 
again with exquisite care while Doris leaned on 
her knee, hardly knowing what she did, so in- 
tense was her breathless interest in what Miss 
Judy was doing. The shyest are always the 
most trusting, if they trust at all. When Sidney, 

, returning from her rounds, came by at nightfall to 
take Doris home, the child was no longer in the 
least afraid of Miss Judy; and Miss Judy was not 
nearly so much frightened as she had been at first. 

Yet it was, after all, surprising, considering 
how timid they both were, that they should so 
soon have become tenderly and deeply attached 
to each other. But every day that Sidney 
brought Doris and left her, she was happier to 
come and more willing to stay ; and erelong 
the day on which she had not come would have 
been an empty one and dull indeed for Miss 
Judy. One bright morning they had been very, 
very happy together. Miss Sophia nodded as 
usual in her low rocking-chair, and Miss Judy 
was darning her sister’s stockings while Doris 
played at her feet. 


so 


The Child of Miss Judy’s Heart 

“ Miss Dudy,” the child said suddenly, rais- 
ing her large, serious eyes to Miss Judy’s sweet 
face with a puzzled look ; “ was it you or my 
mammy that horned me ? ” 

Miss Judy started, — blushing, smiling, look- 
ing like a beautiful girl, — and bending down 
she gathered the little one in her arms and held 
her for a long time very, very close. From that 
moment her love for Doris assumed a different 
character. 

It was a love which grew with the child’s 
growth ; which watched and fostered every new 
beauty of character a§ the girl blossomed into 
early womanhood, beautiful and sweet as a tall 
white flower. Gradually Doris became as the 
sun and the moon to Miss Judy, the first object 
when she arose in the morning, her last thought 
when she lay down at night. Y et this devotion 
to Doris, and absorption in the girl’s interests 
and future, did not lessen in the least her devo- 
tion to Miss Sophia, her ceaseless watchfulness 
over her welfare, her tender care for her happi- 
ness. Her love for Doris never touched her 
love for her sister at any point. The two loves 
were so distinct, so unlike, so widely apart that 
there could be no conflict. It is true that Miss 
Judy’s love for Miss Sophia was also strongly 
and tenderly maternal. But Miss Judy’s gentle 
heart was so full of this mother-love — single and 
simple — that some of it might have been given 
to the whole human race. Her love for Doris 
was something much more exclusive, some- 
thing infinitely more subtle than this, which is 
SI 


Oldfield 


shared in a measure by every womanly woman. 
It was the romantic, poetic love which is given 
by loving age to lovable youth when it recalls 
life’s dawnlight to the twilight of a life which 
has never known the full sunrise. 

With ineffable tenderness Miss Judy yearned 
to lead Doris toward the best, the finest, the 
highest, toward all that she herself had reached, 
and toward much which she had missed. The 
quaint, the antiquated, the absurd, the enchant- 
ing things that the little lady taught the little 
child, the young maiden! There was noth- 
ing so coarse as Shakespeare and nothing so 
commonplace as the musical glasses. Shake- 
speare seemed to Miss Judy, who knew him 
only by hearsay, as being a little too decided, a 
little too distinctively masculine. It was her the- 
ory of manners that girls should learn only purely 
feminine things. The musical glasses she would 
have deemed rather undesirable as being less 
modish than the guitar, and consequently not so 
well adapted to the high polishing of a young 
lady of quality, of such fine breeding as she had 
determined that Doris’s should be. The guitar 
which led Miss Judy to this conclusion had be- 
longed to her mother. Its faded blue ribbon, tied 
in an old-fashioned bow, still bore the imprint of 
her vanished fingers. The ribbon smelt of dried 
rose leaves, as the old music-books did too, when 
Miss Judy got them out of the cabinet in the 
darkened parlor, and gave them to Doris, smiling 
a little sadly, as she always smiled when think- 
ing of her mother. Miss Judy preferred Tom 
52 





The Child of Miss Judy’s Heart 

Moore’s songs, because they were very sentimen- 
tal, and also because they were the only ones 
that she knew. She had never been able to 
sing, but she had very high ideals of what she 
called “ expression,” and she could play the 
guitar after a pretty, airy, tinkling old fashion. 
So that Doris, having a low, sweet voice of 
much natural music and some real talent for 
the art, learned easily enough through even 
Miss Judy’s methods of teaching; and came 
erelong to sing of “ Those endearing young 
charms ” and “ The heart that has truly 
loved” in a bewitchingly heart-broken way; 
while the faded blue ribbon fell round her 
lovely young shoulders. 

It was really a pity that no one except Miss 
Sophia saw or heard those lessons — which must 
have been so well worth seeing and hearing. 
Miss Judy and Doris were both so entirely in 
earnest in all that they were doing. Both were 
so thoroughly convinced that the things being 
taught artd learned were precisely the things 
which a young gentlewoman should know. 
Yet nobody but poor Miss Sophia, who was 
asleep most of the time, ever had so much as 
a glimpse of all that was constantly going on 
in this forming of a young lady of quality. 
It was another part of Miss- Judy’s theory of 
manners that everything concerning a gentle- 
woman, young or old, must be strictly private. 
When, therefore, it came to such delicate mat- 
ters as walking and courtesying — as a young 
lady of quality should walk and courtesy — not 
53 


Oldfield 


even Miss Sophia was permitted to be present. 
Miss Judy took Doris into the darkened parlor 
and raised the shades only a cautious inch or 
two, so that, while they could see to move about, 
no living eye might behold the charming scene 
which was taking place. And there in this 
dim light, the dainty old lady and the grace- 
ful young girl would take delicate steps and 
make wonderful courtesies — grave as grave 
could be — all up and down, and up and down 
that sad old room. 

Let nobody think, however, that Miss Judy 
thought only of accomplishments, while she was 
thus throwing her whole heart and mind and 
soul into the rearing and the training of this 
child of her spirit. The substantial branches of 
education were not neglected. Miss Judy tried 
untiringly to help Doris in gaining a store of 
really useful knowledge. She did not know so 
well how to go about this as she did about the 
music and the courtesy. She knew little if any 
more of the hard prosaic side of the world than 
Doris herself knew — which was nothing at all. 
But she had a few good old books. Her father 
had been a true lover of the best in literature, 
and her mother had been as fond of sentiment 
in fiction as in real life. These books, thick, 
stubby old volumes bound in leather, gathered 
by them, were Miss Judy’s greatest pride and 
delight. She therefore led Doris to them in due 
time, impressing her with proper reverence, and 
thus the girl became in a measure acquainted 
with a very few of the few really great in letters, 
54 


The Child of Miss Judy’s Heart 

and learned to know them as they may be known 
to an old lady and a young girl who have never 
had a glimpse of the world. 

Miss Judy had but one book which was less 
than a half century in age. That one book, 
however, was very, very new indeed and so re- 
markable that Miss Judy held it to be worthy 
of a place with the old great ones. She had 
already read it several times, and yet, strange 
to say, she had not given it to Doris to read. 
Of course she had told her about it as soon as 
it came from the thoughtful friend in Virginia 
who had sent it. But, for certain reasons which 
were not quite clear to herself, she was doubtful 
about its being the kind of a book best calcu- 
lated to be really improving to Doris. She had 
read it aloud to Miss Sophia (who tried her best 
to keep awake), and she was confidently relying 
upon her judgment, which she considered so 
much sounder and more practical than her own, 
in making the decision. It was quite a serious 
matter, and Miss Judy was still earnestly though 
silently considering it after breakfast on that 
morning in March. 

“ The more I think of it the surer I feel that 
the main trouble with Becky was that she had 
no proper bringing up, poor thing ; ” remarked 
Miss Judy suddenly and rather absently, as if 
speaking more to herself than to her sister. 

They sat side by side in their little rocking- 
chairs as they loved to sit, and they were busily 
engaged in sorting garden seeds. That is, Miss 
Judy was sorting the seeds while Miss Sophia 
55 


Oldfield 


held the neat little calico bags which Miss 
Judy had made in the fall, while Miss Sophia 
held the calico. Still, Miss Sophia’s coopera- 
tion, slight as it seemed, really required a good 
deal of effort and very close attention. It was 
all she could do to keep the bags on her round 
little knees ; nature, who is niggardly in many 
things, having denied the poor lady a lap. 

“ Who ? ” asked Miss Sophia, staring, and 
struggling with the seed-bags. “ What Betty.'’ ” 

“ Why, Becky Sharp, of course,” said Miss 
Judy. 

She was much surprised, and a little hurt that 
Miss Sophia should so soon have forgotten 
Becky, when they had talked about her until 
they had gone to bed on the night before, to say 
nothing of many other times. But she was only 
a bit hurt, she was never offended by anything 
that Miss Sophia did or said, and she went 
on as if she had not been even disappointed. 
“ We must make up our minds as to the ad- 
visability of giving Doris the book to read be- 
fore long. I was just wondering whether you 
thought as I think, sister Sophia, that if Becky’s 
mother had lived she would have been taught 
better than to do those foolish things, which 
were so shockingly misunderstood. I firmly 
believe that if Becky had been properly brought 
up, poor thing, she might have made a good 
woman. I have been waiting for a good op- 
portunity to ask your opinion. What would we 
have been, without our dear mother.!*” she urged, 
as though pleading with Miss Sophia not to 
56 


The Child of Miss Judy’s Heart 

be too hard on Becky. “ And she was always 
so poor, too. Mercifully weve never had actual 
poverty to contend with, as — poor Becky had. 
Most of the trouble came from that — Becky 
herself said it did, you remember, sister So- 
phia.” 

“Just so, sister Judy,” responded Miss 
Sophia, warmly, and without a shade of re- 
serve, although she had but the haziest notion 
of who Becky was, or had been, or might be ; 
and speaking with such firm decision that Miss 
Judy felt as if the matter were really about 
decided at last. 


57 


V 


AN UNCONSCIOUS PHILOSOPHER 

There is much more in the way that a thing 
is said than we are apt to realize. Miss Sophia 
always repeated her vague and unvaried for- 
mula, whenever Miss Judy seemed to expect a 
response, and she always did it with such an 
effect of firm conviction as renewed Miss Judy’s 
confidence in the soundness of her judgment 
and value of her advice. In this satisfactory 
manner the little sisters were again discussing 
the new book several weeks later, when the 
spring was well advanced. They had thus de- 
bated the serious question of Doris’s being or 
not being permitted to read the new novel, for 
an hour or more ; and they might have gone 
on discussing it indefinitely, as they did most 
things, had not Sidney Wendall come in quite 
unexpectedly. 

As the Oldfield front doors set open all day, 
there was not much ceremony in the announce- 
ment of visitors. The caller usually tapped on 
the door and entered the house forthwith, going 
on to seek the family wherever the members of 
it were most likely to be found. Sidney now 
gave the tap required by politeness, and then, 
hearing the murmur of voices, went straight 
through the passage and into the room in which 
the sisters were sitting. They both glanced up 
58 


An Unconscious Philosopher 

with a look of pleased surprise as Sidney’s tall 
form darkened the doorway. Miss Judy could 
not rise to receive Sidney on account of having 
an apronful of late garden-seeds. Her sister 
was holding the calico bags, as usual; and then 
Miss Sophia’s getting out of a chair and on her 
feet was always a matter of time and difficulty. 
But their faces beamed a warm welcome, and 
Miss Judy called Merica away from the iron- 
ing-table in the kitchen to fetch the parlor rock- 
ing-chair for Sidney to sit in, which was in itself 
a distinguished attention, such as could not but 
be flattering to any guest. And when Sidney 
was seated, Merica was requested to draw a 
bucket of water fresh from the well, so that 
Sidney might have a nice cool drink. 

Sidney, whom no one ever thought of calling 
Mrs. Wendall, was a large, lean, angular woman. 
She had come in knitting. She always knitted 
as she walked, carrying the big ball of yarn under 
her strong left arm. Her calico sunbonnet was 
always worn far back on her head. She took 
it off that day as soon as she sat down, and 
hung it on the knob of the chair. Then she 
removed the horn comb from her hair, let it 
drop, shook it out, twisted it up again with a 
swish — into a very tight knot — and thrust the 
comb back in place with singular emphasis. 
Everybody in Oldfield knew what those ges- 
tures meant. Nobody seemed to notice what 
wonderful hair she had. It was long, thick, 
silky, rippling, and of the Color of the richest 
gold. It was most beautiful hair — rich and 
59 


Oldfield 


dazzling enough to crown a young queen — and 
most strangely out of place on Sidney’s homely, 
middle-aged head ; with its plain sallow face, its 
pale shrewd eyes, its grotesquely long nose, its 
expression of whimsical humor, and its wide 
jester’s mouth. 

The Oldfield people were so well used to 
seeing Sidney take her hair down, and twist it 
up again, even in the middle of the big road, 
that they had long since ceased to observe the 
hair itself. It was the meaning of the gestures 
that instantly caught and held the eager interest 
of the entire community. For, whenever Sidney 
took off her bonnet, and let down her hair and 
shook it vigorously and swished it up again into 
a tighter knot, and put the comb back with a 
certain degree of emphasis, everybody knew that 
there was something interesting in the wind. 
Poor Miss Sophia, who was not quick to under- 
stand many things, knew what those signs meant, 
and when she saw them that day she straightened 
up suddenly, wide awake, and breathing hard as 
she always was when trying her best to keep the 
track of what was going on, and forgetting all 
about the seed-bags, which abruptly slid over 
the precipice, wholly unheeded. Even Miss 
Judy, who so disliked gossip, could not help 
feeling somewhat agreeably excited and turn- 
ing quite pink, as she remembered that she had 
never known Sidney’s news to do any harm, to 
wound any one, to injure any one, or to make 
mischief of any description. She had often 
wondered how Sidney could talk all day long, 
6o 


An Unconscious Philosopher 

day after day, year in and year out, going con- 
stantly from house to house without doing harm 
sometimes through sheer inadvertence. She 
now looked at Sidney in smiling expectancy, 
turning a rosier pink from growing anticipa- 
tion. 

The mere fact of an unexpected visit from 
Sidney was enough to throw any Oldfield 
household into a state of delightful excitement. 
Sidney’s visits were like visits of Royalty ; they 
always had to be arranged for in advance, and 
they always had to be paid for afterwards. It was 
clearly understood by everybody that Sidney 
went nowhere without a formal invitation given 
some time in advance, and an explicit and suffi- 
cient inducement. Yet there was nothing in 
this to her discredit ; she was far from being the 
mere sordid mercenary that Royalty seems now 
and then to be. Sidney was an open, upright 
worker in life’s vineyard, and did nothing dis- 
creditable in holding herself worthy of her hire. 
It was necessary for her to earn a living for five 
needy souls; for her three children, her hus- 
band’s brother, and herself. There were not 
many avenues open to women-workers in any 
part of the world in the day of Sidney’s direst 
need. There were fewer where she lived than 
almost anywhere else throughout the civilized 
earth. She did what she might do ; she learned 
to earn bread for her family by the only honor- 
able means in her power. She studied to amuse 
the people of the village who had no other source 
of entertainment. She raised her adopted pro- 

61 


Oldfield 


fession until it became an art. It is probable 
that she had the comedian’s talent to begin 
with. She certainly possessed the comic actor’s 
mouth. And then she doubtless soon learned, 
as most of us learn sooner or later, that it is 
more profitable to make the world laugh than 
to make it weep. At all events the part that 
she played was nearly always a merry one. 
Only once, indeed, during the whole of her long 
professional career, was she ever known to come 
close to tragedy ; but those who were present 
at the time never forgot what she said, how 
she said it, nor how she looked while saying it. 

It happened one night at old lady Gordon’s, 
over the supper table. The party had been a 
gay one, and Sidney had been the life of it, as 
she always was of every gathering in Oldfield. 
She had told her best stories, she had given out 
her latest news, she had said many witty and 
amusing things, until the whole table was in 
what the ladies of Oldfield would have described 
as a “ regular gale.” It was not until they were 
rising from the supper, still laughing at Sidney’s 
jokes, that she said, in an off-hand way — as’ if 
upon second thought — that she would like to 
have some of the dainties, with which the table 
was laden, to take home to her children. Before 
old lady Gordon had time to say, “ Certainly, 
I’ll fix up the basket,” as everybody always said 
whenever Sidney made that expected remark, 
Miss Pettus blazed out : — 

“ How can you ! ” she cried, turning in her 
fiery way upon Sidney. “ How can you sit here, 
62 


An Unconscious Philosopher 

eating, laughing, and spinning yarns, when you 
know your children are hungry at home — and 
never think of them till now?” Her little 
black eyes were flashing, and she looked Sidney 
straight in the face, meaning every word that 
she said. 

The very breath was taken out of the com- 
pany. The ladies were stricken speechless with 
amazement and dismay. Even old lady Gor- 
don had not a thing ready to say. Sidney, too, 
stood still and silent for a moment, resting her 
hand on the back of her chair. She turned 
white, standing very erect, looking taller than 
ever, and very calm — a figure of great dignity. 

“ I think of my children first, last, and all the 
time,” she said quietly and slowly after an 
instant’s strained silence. Her cool, pale eyes 
met Miss Pettus’s hot black eyes steadily. 

“ But I don’t think it best to talk about them 
too much ; ” she went on calmly. “ Do any of 
you ladies think my children would get theirsup- 
per any sooner if I came here whining about how 
hungr)'^ they were? Would you ever invite me to 
come again if I did that — even once? Would 
you, Mrs. Gordon ? W ould you invite me ioyour 
parties. Miss Pettus ? Wouldn’t you, and you, 
and all of you” — turning from one to another 
— “ begin right away to regard me as a tiresome 
beggar and my children as paupers ? I am 
afraid you would. It would only be human 
nature. I’m not blaming anybody. But — I 
don’t intend to risk it. I think things are bet- 
ter as they stand now. I amuse you and you 
63 


Oldfield 


help me. I give you what you like in exchange 
for what my children need. It’s a fair trade ; 
you’re all bound by it to regard me and my 
children with respect.” 

Miss Pettus was crying as if her heart would 
break long before Sidney was done speaking. She 
fairly flew at her and, throwing her arms around 
Sidney’s neck, begged her forgiveness with a 
humility such as no one ever knew that hasty, 
hot-tempered, well-meaning little woman to show 
overany other of her many mistakes. Never after- 
ward would she allow Sidney to be criticised in 
her presence. She quarrelled fiercely with the 
doctor’s wife for saying that she really could not 
see how Sidney got her news, and for quoting the 
doctor’s opinion that it must come over the grape- 
vine telegraph. Miss Pettus would have had her 
brother send Sidney’s children a portion of 
everything that his store contained. But Sid- 
ney would not accept from any one a penny- 
worth more than she earned. If Miss Pettus 
wished to send the Wendall family a pound of 
candles after Sidney had supped with her, spic- 
ing the meal with news and anecdote, all very 
well and good. Or if, after Sidney’s making a 
special effort to enliven one of Miss Pettus’s 
dinner parties in the middle of the day, that 
lady suggested giving Uncle Watty a pair of 
her brother’s trousers, Sidney was glad and 
even thankful. To get her brother-in-law’s 
clothes was, indeed, the hardest problem she 
had to solve. And then, when Uncle Watty 
had done with the trousers, they could be cut 
64 


An Unconscious Philosopher 

down for her son, Billy. Under such proper cir- 
cumstances, Sidney accepted all sorts of things 
from everybody — anything, indeed, that she 
chanced to want — with as complete indepen- 
dence and as entire freedom from any feeling 
of obligation, as any artist accepts his fee for 
entertaining the public. 

The obligation commonly imposed by hospi- 
tality had consequently no weight whatever 
with Sidney, and in this, also, she was not un- 
like some other celebrities. She did not hesi- 
tate to express her opinion of old lady Gordon, 
whose supper she had eaten on the previous 
evening, when Miss Judy, knowing about it and 
wishing to start the conversational ball rolling, 
now asked how things passed off. Sidney had 
swapped her spiciest stories for old lady Gor- 
don’s richest food. Old lady Gordon was per- 
fectly free to think and to say what she pleased 
about those stories (provided she never men- 
tioned them before Miss Judy) ; and Sidney, on 
her side, held herself equally free to think and 
to say what she thought of her hostess and of 
the supper too, had that been open to criticism 
— which old lady Gordon’s suppers never 
were. 

“ That old woman is a regular Hessian^' was 
Sidney’s reply to Miss Judy’s innocent inquiry. 

“Dear me!” exclaimed Miss Judy, quite 
startled and rather shocked. “ Really, Sidney, 
I don’t think you should call anybody such a 
name as that.” 

“ Well, I’d like to know what else a body is 

F 6s 


Oldfield 


to call an old woman who hasn’t got a mite of 
natural feeling.” 

“ But we have no right to say that either of any- 
body. We can’t tell,” pleaded gentle Miss Judy. 

She was wondering, nevertheless, as she spoke, 
what could have occurred at old lady Gordon’s 
on the night before. It was plain that the news 
which Sidney was holding back for an effective 
bringing forth must have had something to do 
with the visit. However, it was always useless 
to try to make Sidney tell what she had to tell, until 
she was quite ready. Even Miss Sophia was 
well aware of this peculiarity of Sidney’s, and, 
breathing harder than ever in the intensity of 
her curiosity and suspense, she leaned forward, 
doing her utmost to understand what was being 
said in leading up to the news. Miss Judy, 
of course, understood Sidney’s methods perfectly, 
through long and intimate acquaintance with 
them ; and then, aside from the fact that Sidney 
could not be hurried. Miss Judy always tried 
anyway to turn the talk away from unpleasant 
themes. 

“ Did you remember to ask Mrs. Gordon about 
Mr. Beauchamp?” Miss Judy now inquired, 
adroitly bending Sidney’s thoughts toward a 
delightful subject in which they were both deeply 
interested. “ Did she know whether he used to 
be a dancing-master in his own country, as we 
have understood? I do hope you haven’t 
changed your mind,” she added earnestly. “ It 
is really most important for Doris to learn to 
dance.” 


66 


An Unconscious Philosopher 

“No, I haven’t changed it a bit. I’ve got the 
same Hard-shell, Whiskey Baptist mind that I’ve 
had for the last forty years. But it isn’t as I 
think about dancing, or anything else that 
Doris is concerned in. It’s as you think — ” 

“No — no, you mustn’t say that,” protested 
Miss Judy. 

“ I do say it, I mean it, and I intend to abide 
by it,” declared Sidney, laying her knitting on 
her lap and loosing rings of yarn from her big 
ball and holding them out at arm’s length. 
“You’ve always known better what was good 
for Doris than I ever have. When it comes to 
a difference of opinion I’m bound to give up.” 

Miss Judy blushed and looked distressed. 
“ It is really such an important matter,” she 
urged timidly. “ A young lady cannot possibly 
learn how to walk and how to carry herself with 
real grace, without being taught dancing. If I 
only had some one to play the tune, I might teach 
Doris the rudiments myself ; or sister Sophia 
might, if she hadn’t that shortness of breath, 
and if I could play any instrumental piece 
on the guitar except the Spanish fandango. 
That tune, however, is not very well suited to the 
minuet, whifch is the only dance that we ever 
learned. Mother taught us the minuet, because 
she thought it necessary for all well brought up 
girls to learn it just for deportment, though she 
knew we should probably never have an oppor- 
tunity to dance it in society.” 

Thus reminded of the many things that they 
had missed, Miss Judy turned and smiled a 
67 


Oldfield 


little sadly at Miss Sophia, as though it were 
the sweetest and most natural thing in the world 
to speak of Miss Sophia’s dancing the minuet, 
— poor, little, round, slow Miss Sophia! And 
Miss Sophia also thought it sweet and natural, 
her dull gaze meeting her sister’s bright one 
with confiding love as she murmured the usual 
vague assent. 

“ And did you think to ask Mrs. Gordon 
whether Mr. Beauchamp — ’’Miss Judy hesi- 
tated at the Frenchman’s name, which she 
pronounced as the English pronounce it, and 
delicately touched her forehead. 

“ She said he was perfectly sane except upon 
that one subject, and the kindest, honestest 
soul alive,” said Sidney, whisking the ball 
from under her arm and reeling off more yarn. 

Miss Judy’s sweet old face and soft blue eyes 
w’ore the dreamy look which always came over 
them when her imagination was stirred. “ How 
romantic it is and how touching, that he should 
have believed, through all these years of hard 
work and a menial life, that he is Napoleon’s 
son, the real King of Rome.” 

“ Well, it don’t do any harm,” Sidney, the 
practical, said. “ He don’t dance with his head. 
It seems to me, too. I’ve heard that lots of crazy 
folks were great dancers. Anyway, you may tell 
him, as soon as you like, that I’ll knit his sum- 
mer socks to pay him for showing Doris how 
to dance, and you may say that I’ll throw in the 
cotton to boot. I always like to pay the full 
price for whatever I get. If he still thinks that 
68 


An Unconscious Philosopher 

isn’t enough, you might tell him I’m willing to 
knit his winter ones too, but he’s got to furnish 
the yarn — there’s reason in all things.” 

“ Y ou are sure that Mr. Beauchamp used to 
be a dancing-master.?” asked Miss Judy. 

“ Old lady Gordon told me she had heard 
something of the kind, but she said she had 
never paid any attention. She never does pay 
any attention to anything unless she means to 
eat it,” Sidney said. 

“ Poor old lady Gordon,” sighed Miss Judy. 
“ She hasn’t much except her meals to attend 
to or think about. She must be very, very 
lonely, all alone in the world.” 

“ I’ve never seen any sign of her being sorry 
for herself,” responded Sidney, knitting faster, 
as she always did when warming to her subject. 
“ I never heard of her making any such sign 
when her son and only child went away and 
died without coming back. I never heard or 
saw her show any anxiety about his son and 
only child, that she’s never laid her eyes on, 
though he’s now a grown man. I never heard 
a hint from her about him last night — till she 
had eaten the last ounce of the pound-cake ; 
and drunk the last drop of the blackberry cor- 
dial. Then she remembered to tell me that this 
only grandson of hers is coming at last.” 

Here was the news ! Miss Sophia settled 
back in her chair with a deep breath of satis- 
faction. Miss Judy exclaimed in interested 
surprise. Very few strangers came to Oldfield, 
consequently the advent of a young gentleman 
69 


Oldfield 


from a distant city was an event indeed. No 
wonder that Sidney had made as much of it as 
she could. Miss Judy, and even Miss Sophia, felt 
the high compliment paid them in being the 
first to whom Sidney had taken the thrilling 
intelligence. It was, in fact, the highest expres- 
sion of Sidney’s gratitude to Miss Judy, and fully 
recognized as such by both the little sisters, who 
appreciated it accordingly. 

When Sidney was gone on her way to distrib- 
ute the great news at the various points which 
promised the largest results. Miss Judy went into 
the darkened parlor, the other of the two large 
rooms which the house contained. It was 
rarely opened, and never used except when, at 
long and rare intervals, a formal caller, of whom 
there were not many in that country, was in- 
vited to enter it and to feel the way to a chilly, 
slippery seat. There were two good reasons 
for the room’s disuse. One was that social 
preeminence in the Pennyroyal Region de- 
manded a dark and disused parlor, although 
it did not militate against a bed in the living 
room. Formal visitors expected to grope their 
way through impenetrable gloom to invisible 
seats. Accidents sometimes happened, it is 
true, as when, upon one occasion, old lady Gor- 
don, in calling upon Miss Judy shortly before 
Major Bramwell left for Virginia, sat down in 
a large chair, without being aware that it was 
already occupied by the major, who was a very 
small man. The second good reason for the 
room’s not being used was that in cool weather 
70 


An Unconscious Philosopher 

Miss Judy could not get fuel for another fire. 
It was all that Merica could do, all the year 
round, to find enough wood for one fire; the 
stray sticks dropped from passing wagons, an 
occasional branch fallen from the old locust trees 
which lined the big road, and the regular basket 
of chips picked up behind the cabinet-maker’s 
shop, barely sufficing to keep up a small blaze 
in the corner of the fireplace in the living room, 
which was also the sisters’ bedroom. 

Miss Judy groped her way cautiously through 
the darkness of the chilly parlor, and raised the 
shades far enough to let in a slender shaft of 
sunlight. She looked around the room with a 
soft sigh. It was so full of sad and tender mem- 
ories, and so empty of everything else. The 
portraits of her father and mother, painted very 
young, hung side by side over the tall mantel- 
piece. The intelligent force of her father’s face 
and the soft beauty of her mother’s came back 
to Miss Judy anew whenever she looked at 
their likenesses. On the opposite walls hung the 
portraits of her paternal grandfather and grand- 
mother, painted when they were very old. The 
old gentleman, a judge under the crown in Vir- 
ginia, had been painted in his wig and gown. 
His fine face was hard and stern, and Miss Judy 
often wondered whether he ever had forgiven 
his son for fighting against the king and the 
mother country. The old lady’s face was 
as sweet and gentle as Miss Judy’s own, and 
there was a charming resemblance between the 
pictured and the living features. But the grand- 
71 


Oldfield 


mother’s face wore an expression of unhappiness, 
and the granddaughter’s was never unhappy, 
although it was sometimes sad for the unhappi- 
ness of others and the pain of the world. 

The portraits had been taken out of their 
frames, so that they might be brought over the 
Alleghanies with less difficulty. They had 
never been reframed, and there was something 
inexpressibly melancholy in their hanging thus, 
quite unshielded, against the rough, white- 
washed logs. Melancholy, vague and far-off, 
pervaded indeed the whole atmosphere of the 
shadowed room. It floated out from a broken 
vase of parian marble which was fllled with dried 
rose leaves, brown and crumbling, yet still send- 
ing forth that sweetest, purest, loneliest, and 
saddest of scents. It clung about the angular, 
empty arms of the few old chairs, dim with 
brocade of faded splendor. It lay on the long 
old sofa — with its high back and its sunken 
springs — like the wan ghost of some bright 
dream that had never come true. But the 
tenderest and subtlest sadness came from 
the fading sampler which Miss Judy’s mother 
had worked in those endless days of exile in 
the wilderness. Ah, the silent suffering, the 
patient endurance, the uncomplaining disap- 
pointment, wrought into those numberless 
stitches ! And yet, with all, perhaps bits of 
brightness too, — a touch of rose-color here, 
and a hint of gold there — such as a sweet 
woman weaves into the grayest fabric of life. 

Miss Judy, sighing again, although she could 
72 


An Unconscious Philosopher 

not have told why she always sighed on entering 
the darkened parlor, now knelt down beside the 
sofa, and drew a small box from beneath it. But 
she did not open the box at once ; instead, she 
seated herself on the floor and sat still for a space 
holding the box in her hand, as if she shrank 
from seeing its contents. At length, slowly un- 
tying the discolored cord that bound the box, 
she lifted the covet, and took out a pair of satin 
slippers. They had once been white, but they 
were now as yellow as old ivory, and the narrow 
ribbon intended to cross over the instep and to tie 
around the ankle had deepened almost into the 
tint of the withered primrose. The slippers were 
heel-less, and altogether of an antiquated fashion, 
but Miss Judy did not know that they were. She 
was doubtful only about the size, for they seemed 
very small even to her ; and she thought, with 
tender pride, how much taller Doris was than she 
had ever been, even before she had begun to stoop 
a little in the shoulders. T urning the slippers this 
way and that, she regarded them anxiously, with 
her curly head on one side, until she at last made 
up her mind that Doris could wear them. They 
might be rather a snug fit, but they would stay 
on, while Doris was dancing, all the better for 
fitting snugly. Yet Miss Judy still sat motion- 
less, holding the slippers, and looking down at 
them, long after reaching this conclusion. The 
most unselfish of women, she was, neverthe- 
less, a truly womanly woman. She could not 
surrender the last symbol of a wasted youth 
without many lingering pangs. 

73 


VI 


LYNN GORDON 

The slippers had belonged to a white dress 
which Miss Judy used to call her book-muslin 
party coat, and this treasure was already in 
Doris’s possession. It had been very fine in 
its first soft whiteness, and now, mellowed by 
time, as the slippers were, into the hue of old 
ivory, and darned all over, it was like some rare 
and exquisite old lace. Doris thought it the 
prettiest thing that she had ever seen ; certainly 
it was the prettiest that she had ever owned. 
When, therefore, the slippers came to join it as 
a complete surprise, she took the party coat out 
of its careful wrappings, and, after a close search, 
was delighted to find one or two gauzy spaces 
still undarned. It was a delight merely to touch 
the old muslin. She held it against her cheek 
— which was softer and fairer still, though 
Doris thought nothing of that — giving it a 
loving little pat before laying it down. There 
were household duties to be done ere Doris 
would be free to get her invisible needle and her 
gossamer thread, and to begin the airy weaving 
of the cobwebs. 

There was only one room and a loft to be 
put in order, but Doris always did it while her 
74 


Lynn Gordon 

mother was busy in the kitchen, getting ready 
for the day’s professional round. Sidney was 
exceedingly particular about the cleaning of her 
house, insisting that the “ rising sun ” of the red 
and yellow calico quilt should always be pre- 
cisely in the middle of the feather bed, and that 
the gorgeous border of sun-rays should be even 
all around the edges. The long, narrow pillow- 
cases, ruffled across the ends, must also hang 
just so far down the bed’s sides — and no far- 
ther. The home-made rug, too, had its exact 
place, and there must never be a speck of dust 
anywhere. 

The house was said to be the cleanest in 
Oldfield, where all the houses were clean. 
Some people believed that Sidney scrubbed 
the log walls inside and outside every spring, 
before whitewashing them within and without. 
Be that as it may, the poor home had, at all 
events, the fresh neatness which invests even 
poverty with refinement. 

Doris slighted nothing that morning, although 
she was naturally impatient to go back to the 
book-muslin. Yet it seemed to take longer to 
get the house in perfect order than ever before. 
The trundle-bed in which Kate and Billy slept 
was particularly contrary, and it really looked, 
for a time, as if Doris would never be able to 
get it entirely out of sight under the big bed. It 
was settled at last, however, and she had taken 
up the party coat and had seated herself beside 
the window, when her mother entered the room. 

Sidney cast a sharp glance at the white cotton 
75 


Oldfield 


window curtain to see if it were drawn exactly 
to the middle of the middle pane, or rather to 
the hair line, which the middle of the middle 
pane would have reached, had Doris not put the 
sash up. Sidney, rigid in her rudimentary ideas 
of propriety, considered it improper for a young 
girl to sit unshielded before a window in full view 
from the highway. It made no difference to 
Sidney that nobody ever passed the window, 
except as the neighbors went to and fro, or an 
occasional farmer came to the village on business. 
Sidney was firm, and Doris, the gentle and yield- 
ing, did as she was told to do. The coarse 
white curtain was accordingly now in its proper 
place. Sidney noted the fact, as she cast a sweep- 
ing glance around the room, seeking the speck 
of dust which she seldom found and which never 
escaped her keen eyes. Doris put the book- 
muslin aside and arose as her mother came in, 
and she now stood awaiting directions for the 
management of the household during the day. 
Sidney’s professional absences lasted from nine 
in the morning until six in the evening every 
day, winter and summer, the whole year round, 
Sunday alone excepted. During these pro- 
longed absences the care of the family rested 
upon Doris’s young shoulders, and had done so 
ever since she could remember. It may have 
been this which gave her the little air of dignity 
which set so charmingly on her radiant youth. 
She now listened to her mother’s directions, 
gravely, attentively, respectfully, as she always 
did. 


76 


Lynn Gordon, 

“ Everything is spick and span in the kitchen," 
Sidney said, setting the broom on end behind 
the door and rolling down the sleeves over her 
strong arms. “ Make the children stay in the 
back yard till the school bell rings. Don’t let 
them go in the kitchen. They clutter up things 
like two little pigs. And don’t let them get at 
the cake that Anne Watson sent. We’ll keep 
that for Sunday dinner. It’s mighty light and 
nice. It lays awful heavy on my conscience, 
though. I really ought to go to see poor Tom 
this very day. I ought to go there every day 
and try to cheer him up. But I’ve got so many 
places engaged that I actually don’t know where 
to go first. Remember — don’t let the children 
touch the cake. Give ’em a slice apiece of 
that pie of Miss Pettus’s. And there will be 
plenty of Kitty Mills’s cold ham for them and 
for Uncle Watty too.” 

“ Yes’m,” answered Doris, assenting to every- 
thing which her mother told her to do or not to 
do. Trained by Miss Judy, she would no more 
have thought of speaking to an older person or 
to any one whom she respected, without saying 
“sir” or “madam,” than a well-bred French girl 
would think of doing such a thing. Miss Judy 
and Doris had never heard of its being “ servile ” 
to do this. They both considered it an essential 
part of good manners and gentle breeding. 
Many old-fashioned folks in the Pennyroyal 
Region still think so. 

Untying her gingham apron, and hanging 
it beside the broom, Sidney put on her sun- 
77 


Oldfield 


bonnet, and, firmly settling her ball of yarn under 
her left arm, began to knit as she left the door- 
step on which Doris stood looking after her. 

Sidney paused for a moment at the gate after 
dropping the loop of string over the post, and 
looked up at the little window in the loft. 

“ It would, I reckon, be better to let your 
Uncle Watty sleep as long as he likes. He’s 
kinder out of the way up there, and better off 
asleep than awake, poor soul, when he hasn’t 
got any red cedar to whittle. I noticed yester- 
day that he had whittled up his last stick. He 
never knows what to do with himself when he’s 
out of cedar. I’ll try to get him some. Maybe 
old lady Gordon’s black gardener Enoch Cotton 
will fetch some from the woods, if I promise to 
knit him a pair of socks.” 

An expression flitted over Doris’s face, telling 
her thoughts. Sidney, seeing it, felt in duty 
bound to rebuke it. 

“Now, Doris — mind what I say — as young 
folks do old folks, so other young folks will do 
them when their turn comes. I never knew it 
to fail. We all get what we give, no more, no 
less. It always works even in the end, though 
it may not seem so as we go along. See that 
your Uncle Watty’s breakfast is real nice and 
hot. Make him some milk toast out of Mrs. 
Alexander’s salt-rising — if it’s too hard for his 
gums. Old lady Gordon said she would have 
Eunice fetch me a bucket of milk every day. 
Y ou won’t forget ? ” 

Doris again said “yes, ma’am ’’and “no, ma’am” 
78 


Lynn Gordon 

in the proper place, listening throughout with 
the greatest attention and respect, and trying 
very hard not to think about the book-muslin 
party coat. 

Sidney twitched the string which held the gate 
to the post, to make sure that it was firmly tied. 
“That crumpled-horn of Colonel Fielding’s could 
pick a lock with her horns. Now remember 
about Uncle Watty. He’s had a hard time, 
poor old man, ever since his leg was broken. 
If Dr. Alexander had been here, it would have 
been different. I should just like to give that 
fool of a travelling doctor a piece of my mind. 
Him a-pretending to know what he was about, 
and a-setting your poor Uncle Watty’s broken 
leg east and west, instead of north and south ! ” 

Doris’s cheek dimpled, but she answered duti- 
fully as before. She had her own opinion as to 
how much the latitude or longitude of Uncle 
Watty’s left leg had to do with his general dis- 
ability. She could remember him before the 
leg was broken, and she had never known him 
to do anything except whittle a stick of red cedar. 
Youth, at its gentlest, is apt to be hard in its 
judgment of age’s shortcomings. Doris knew 
how good her mother was as she watched her 
walking down the big road, with her long, free, 
swinging stride, with her sunbonnet on the 
back of her head, and her knitting-needles flash- 
ing in the sun. But she wondered if there 
were no other way. She hated to see her set out 
on these rounds, she had hated it ever since she 
could remember, and had gone on hating it as 
79 


Oldfield 


vehemently as it was in her gentle nature to 
hate anything. The mother never had been 
able to make Doris see from her own point of 
view, and Doris had never been able to make 
her mother understand the intensity of her own 
sensitiveness, or the soreness of her silent pride. 
Many a day, as Doris sat sewing beside the 
window in seeming contentment, she was rest- 
lessly seeking some means of escape ; almost 
continually she was trying to find a way to lift 
the burden from her mother — striving to see 
something wholly different that she herself might 
do. Going back to her book-muslin on that morn- 
ing, she was wondering whether Mrs. Watson or 
Mrs. Alexander might not need some needle- 
work done. Perhaps she could earn a little 
money in that way, and they could live on very 
little. But hers was not a brooding disposition, 
and she was soon singing over the old party 
coat. Then the school bell reminded her 
that the children’s faces and hands must be 
washed before they went to school ; and by the 
time they were sent off down the big road. Uncle 
Watty was ready for his breakfast. Doris car- 
ried out her mother’s directions to the letter. 
She poured his coffee, and sat respectfully wait- 
ing until he had finished eating, and then she 
washed the dishes, and put them away. 

Returning to her seat by the window, she 
glanced now and then at Uncle Watty, who had 
seated himself under the blossoming plum tree 
to enjoy a leisurely, luxurious pipe of tobacco, 
having recently swapped a butter paddle, which 
So 


Lynn Gordon 

he had whittled out of red cedar, for a fine old 
“ hand ” of the precious weed. It was, how- 
ever, most unusual for Uncle Watty’s whittling 
to assume any useful shape, or, indeed, any 
shape at all. Every morning, except Sunday, 
he hobbled off down the big road, to take his 
seat before the store door on an empty goods- 
box, with his pocket-knife and his stick of red 
cedar, ready for whittling. Year after year, the 
box and Uncle Watty were always in the same 
spot, moving only to follow the sun in winter 
and the shade in summer; and the heap of 
red cedar shavings always grew steadily, ever 
undisturbed save as the winds scattered ‘them, 
and the rains beat them into the earth. When 
Uncle Watty finally came hobbling around the 
corner of the house that day, and went away in 
the direction of the store, Doris looked after 
him, wondering — rather carelessly, and a little 
harshly, after the manner of the young and 
untried — what could be the meaning of an 
existence which left a trail of red cedar shav- 
ings as the sole mark of its path through life. 

But that perplexing thought also passed as 
the other had done. She began thinking of 
the dancing lessons, growing more and more 
absorbed in the darning of the party coat. She 
wished she knew whether Miss Judy had ever 
worn it to a real dancing party. She had never 
heard of one’s being given in Oldfield, excepting 
of course the famous ball at the Fielding’s, near 
the jail, on the night that the prisoner escaped ; 
long, long before she was born. Most of the Old- 

G 8l 


Oldfield 


field people thought it a sin to dance. Miss J udy 
must have looked very pretty in the book-muslin. 
Doris laid it on her lap, and, turning to the win- 
dow, gave the curtain an impatient toss, pushing 
it to one side. There was no use in keeping 
it half drawn when never a soul ever went by. 
And the sun was shining, almost with the 
warmth of midsummer, on this glorious May-day. 
When the spring was still farther advanced, 
when the leaves were larger on the two tall 
silver poplars standing beside the gate, lifting 
a shimmering white screen from the soft green 
earth to the softer blue sky; when the climb- 
ing roses, already blooming all over the snowy 
walls, were more thickly festooned ; when the 
Italian honeysuckle hung its rich bronze gar- 
lands and its fragrant bloom from the very eaves 
of the mossy roof — then Doris might push the 
curtain farther back, but not before, no matter 
how brilliantly the sun shone or how entirely 
deserted the big road was. As Doris sat sewing 
and thinking, it seemed to her that her mother 
was unnecessarily strict. She had even thought 
it wrong to allow her to learn to dance. Miss 
Judy had found much difficulty in persuading 
her. However, she had consented at last, and 
presently Doris, all alone in the old house, be- 
gan singing blithely, oblivious of everything ex- 
cept the anticipation of the dancing lessons and 
the pleasure of darning the party coat. The song 
was one of Allan Ramsay’s, a languishing love- 
song which Miss J udy’s mother had sung. But as 
Doris’s thoughts danced to inaudible music, and 


Lynn Gordon 


her needle flew daintily in and out of the soft 
old muslin, the words and the tune soon tripped 
to a gayer measure than they had, perhaps, 
ever known before. 

The birds, too, were lilting gayly on that per- 
fect May morning. A couple of flycatchers were 
breakfasting in mid-air. Happily as if sipping 
nectar from the dewy atmosphere, ethereally as 
if gathering ambrosia from the dawn-tinted 
clouds, they flashed blithely hither and thither, 
innocently destroying other innocent winged 
creatures, according to nature’s merciless plan. 
And the flycatcher was but one of many 
beautiful melodious creatures thronging be- 
tween heaven and earth. Brown thrashers by 
twos and fours flitted back and forth across the 
big road, leaving one green wheat-field for 
another of still richer verdure. A happy pair 
of orioles, flashing orange and black, were dart- 
ing — bright as flame and light as smoke — 
through the tallest silver poplar, building an air- 
castle almost as wonderful, and nearly as fragile, 
as those that young human lovers build. With 
the fetching of each fine fibre, the husband fairly 
turned upside down, and hung by his feet, while 
singing his pride and delight. The wife, more 
modestly happy, quietly rested her soft breast on 
the unstable nest — with all a woman’s trust — 
as though the home were founded upon a rock, 
as all homes should be, and hung not by a frail 
thread at the hazardous tip of an unsteady bough 
as — alas ! — so many homes do. It was steady 
enough just now, when love was new and the 
83 


Oldfield 


spring was mild, and only the southern breeze 
stirred the white-lined leaves with a silken rustle. 
The soft cooing of the unseen doves sounded far 
off. The bees merely murmured among the 
honeysuckle blooms. The humming-bird, which 
was raying rubies and emeralds from the hearts 
of the roses, came and went as softly as the south 
wind. 

Doris smiled at the sylvan housekeeping of 
the orioles, which she watched for awhile, let- 
ting her sewing rest on her lap. But tiring 
soon of the little drama of the silver poplar, as 
we always tire of the happiness of others, the girl’s 
eyes wandered wistfully through the fragrant 
loneliness to the wooded hills which gently folded 
the drowsy village. The trees, delicately green, 
almost silver gray, in their tender foliage, were 
still fringed by the snow of the dogwood, and 
the misty beauty of the red buds ; and the cool, 
leafy vistas, sloping gently down toward the vil- 
lage, met the sea of blossoming orchards, break- 
ing in wide, deep waves of pink and white foam 
at the foot of the hills. But Doris had seen 
those same trees, and hillsides, and orchards 
every May-time of her eighteen years, and 
sameness, however grateful to older eyes, has 
never a great charm for youth. 

Doris’s eyes came back to the book-muslin 
with a keener interest. As she sat there, sew- 
ing and singing, in the soft light that filtered 
through the old curtain, the girl was beautiful, 
almost tragically beautiful, for her uncertain 
place in the world. Her slender throat, like the 


Lynn Gordon 

stem of a white flower, arose from the faded brown 
of her dress as an Easter lily unfolds from its dull 
sheath. Her radiant hair, yellow as new-blown 
marigolds, clustered thick and soft about her fair 
forehead, as the rich pollen falls on the lily’s 
satin. Her delicate brows were dark and 
straight; and her curling lashes, darker still, 
threw bewitching shadows around her large, 
brown eyes. Her face was pale with a warm 
pallor infinitely fairer than any mere fairness. 
Her lips, which were a little full, but exquisite 
in shape and sweetness, were tinted as deli- 
cately as blush roses. Her small, white 
hands, with their rosy palms and tapering 
fingers, bore no traces of hard work. But 
Doris was not thinking of her hands as, with- 
out turning her head, she put out one of them 
for another length of thread. The spool 
was a very small one, and it stood rather un- 
steadily on the uneven ledge of the window, 
and it rolled when Doris touched it. Instinc- 
tively she tried to catch it, and to keep it 
from falling to the ground outside the window. 
She had been reared to neatness and order, 
and to economy which valued even a reel of 
cotton too much to see it needlessly soiled. 
Of course Doris tried to catch the falling spool, 
— and that was the way everything began! It 
was all as simple and natural and purely acci- 
dental as anything could have been. And yet 
at the same time it was one of those inscrutable 
happenings which make the steadiest of us 
seem but feathers in the wind of destiny. 

8S 


Oldfield 


Only a moment before that foolish little spool 
began to roll, the big road seemed entirely 
deserted. Not a human being was in sight — 
Doris was sure that there was not, because she 
had looked and looked in vain, and had longed 
and longed that there might be. Neverthe- 
less, as the little reel started to fall, and Doris 
darted after it as suddenly and swiftly as a 
swallow, there was a young man on horseback 
directly in front of the window, appearing as 
strangely and as unexpectedly as if he had sprung 
out of the earth. And, moreover, he was looking 
straight at Doris, with hardly more than a couple 
of rods between them, when she burst into full 
view in the broad light of day, appearing like some 
beautiful bacchante. The white curtain fell be- 
hind her radiant head as the breeze caught and 
loosed the golden strands of her hair, and the sun 
flashed a greater radiance upon its dazzling 
crown. She saw him, too, with a startled uplift- 
ing of her great shadowy dark eyes as she bent 
forward — while her exquisite face was still smil- 
ing at her own innocent thoughts, and her rose- 
red lips were still a little apart with the singing 
of the old love-song. 

The white curtain then swung again into place. 
It was full of thin spots which Doris could see 
through ; but she was so startled, and her heart 
was beating so fast at first, that she shrunk back 
without trying to look. How right her mother 
had been, after all. That was her first feeling. 
When she recovered self-possession enough to 
peep out, she saw that the young man’s horse 
86 


Lynn Gordon 

was curveting back and forth across the big 
road in a most alarming manner. This con- 
tinued for a surprising length of time before 
Doris observed that, whenever the horse seemed 
about to stop, the rider touched him with the 
spur. Such a flash of indignation went over 
Doris then as quite swept away the last trace 
of embarrassment. How could he do such a 
cruel and such a meaningless thing ! She won- 
dered still more why he dismounted, and, throw- 
ing the bridle reins over his arm, began walking 
up and down in front of the window, gazing 
closely at the ground as though looking for 
something that he had lost. Doris noticed that 
he glanced at the window every time he passed 
it, and she knew that she ought to go out and help 
him find what he had lost. That was a matter 
of course in Oldfield manners. It is the way of 
most country people to take a keen and helpful 
interest in everything that a neighbor does ; and 
city people deserve less credit than they claim 
for their indifference to their neighbor’s affairs, 
which is too often mere selfishness disguised. 
Notwithstanding this local social law Doris did 
not stir, held motionless by an influence which 
she could not understand. She had known at 
once who the young man was. Too few stran- 
gers came to Oldfield for her to fail to place him 
immediately as the grandson of old lady Gordon, 
the young gentleman from Boston, whose com- 
ing everybody was talking about. She noted 
through the worn places in the old curtain how 
tall he was and how dark and how handsome. 

87 


Oldfield 


She could not decide what kind of clothes his 
riding clothes were. At last he mounted his 
horse and galloped up the hill, and then Doris 
returned serenely to the darning of the book- 
muslin party coat 


88 


VII 


THE doctor’s dilemma 

Within the hour Lynn Gordon rode back 
down the hill, and passed the window very 
slowly, watching the curtain as a star-gazer 
awaits the passing of a cloud. 

The baffling width of white cotton hung still 
unstirred ; Doris was no longer sitting behind 
it, but the young man had no means of know- 
ing that she had gone. As the hand on the 
reins unconsciously drew the horse almost to 
a standstill, the doctor and his wife left their 
seats on the porch of their house over the way, 
and came out to the gate to speak to him. 
They had met him at his grandmother’s on the 
previous evening, and they had been old friends 
of his father. Lynn sprang from the saddle 
and, leading his horse, crossed the big road to 
shake hands with them. 

“Have you lost something.?” asked Mrs. 
Alexander. 

“ Oh, no — yes — I have lost a jewel — a 
pearl,” the young man replied rashly. 

The doctor’s lady exclaimed in surprise. 
Jewels were rarely lost or found in that coun- 
try. The gems oftenest lost were the spark- 
ling seeds which flashed out of the jewel-weed ; 

89 


Oldfield 


the finest pearls ever found were those which 
the mistletoe bore. 

“ Dear me, what a pity,” lamented Mrs. Alex- 
ander. “ And how was your pearl set } ” 

“ It wasn’t mine. I didn’t notice how it was 
set. Oh, yes, I did. It was set amid roses 
and honeysuckle and humming-birds against a 
field of spotless snow,” Lynn said, still more 
lightly. 

The doctor’s wife was not a dull woman. She 
understood his tone, though she did not under- 
stand what he meant. She had been eagerly 
scanning the big road, as far as she could see ; 
thinking that a jewel dropped near by on the 
highway — unrolling like a broad band of brown 
velvet from the far green hills on the north to the 
farther green hills on the south — must sparkle 
and flash, showing a long way off in such bril- 
liant sunshine. Now, however, she knew that 
Lynn was not in earnest, and she turned with 
a smile on her own face to meet the laughing 
frankness of his fine dark eyes. But a glance 
was just passing between the young man and the 
older man, and she caught that also, with the 
vague, helpless uneasiness, tinged with resent- 
ment, which every woman feels at seeing a sign 
of the freemasonry of men. 

But a doctor’s wife learns to overlook a good 
many things which she would like to have ex- 
plained, if she be a sensible woman, as Mrs. 
Alexander was. This one merely said : — 

“You are a joker, I see, as your father was. 
Nobody ever could tell when he was serious. 

90 


The Doctor’s Dilemma 

Come in and sit with us. It’s nice and cool 
these early mornings on the porch. Tie your 
horse to the fence. I thought when I saw you 
getting down from the saddle, that you meant 
to hitch him to Sidney’s, and I was just going 
to call and ask you to tie him to ours instead. 
The doctor’s horses pull boards off our fences 
every day, but it doesn’t matter, because he 
keeps somebody to nail them on again ; while 
Sidney has nobody but herself to depend upon.” 

“And even the resourceful Sidney — being 
a woman — can’t drive a nail,” remarked the 
doctor, deliberately. 

He knew how well worn the truism was, but 
he used it designedly, as a toreador uses his 
scarf. He liked to see his wife flare up. Her 
kind eyes grew so bright and her wholesome 
cheeks so red, and it was always so delightfully 
easy to get her in a good humor again. It is 
a tendency which is very common in large men 
with amiable little wives like Mrs. Alexander, 
and one which is very uncommon in smaller 
men with wives of a different disposition. 

Lynn Gordon, as an unmarried man, naturally 
knew nothing of these matters and blundered 
on, disappointing the doctor’s confident expec- 
tations by asking the lady a question, which 
turned her attention in another direction. He 
inquired who Sidney was, seeing an opportunity 
for learning something about the girl behind 
the silver poplars. 

There was no subject upon which Mrs. Alex- 
ander was more willing to talk, nor one upon 
91 


Oldfield 


which she could talk more eloquently, and she 
accordingly began at once to give Lynn the 
history of Sidney Wendall, whom she held to 
be a most interesting as well as a most admi- 
rable and remarkable character. It was no easy 
or simple thing, so the doctor’s wife said, for a 
woman of the Pennyroyal Region to earn a 
family’s living. In that country no white 
woman could work outside her own home (were 
there anything for her to do) on account of com- 
ing into competition with black laborers. And 
Sidney had received no training to lift her above 
the laboring class, having had even less than 
the average country education. And yet, as the 
doctor’s wife pointed out, she had managed to 
maintain her family and herself in reasonable 
comfort and universal respect. It was all very 
well for the men to laugh at Sidney and make 
fun of her news and her gossip. It was all 
very well for them to say — as the doctor said, 
according to his wife, who flashed her eyes at 
him — that Sidney made her news out of the 
whole cloth when she did not get it over the 
grapevine telegraph. Everybody knew how 
hard men always were on any woman who was 
not pretty. As though poor Sidney could help 
the length of her own nose ! Let the mean 
men make fun as much as they pleased ! The 
indignant lady would like, so she said, to see 
one of them who had done his duty in the 
world more nobly than Sidney had done hers. 
She would also like, so she declared, to see one 
of them who kept as strict guard over what he 


The Doctor’s Dilemma 

said about his neighbors, and who was as free 
from evil-speaking and mischief-making, as 
Sidney was — for all her talking that they were 
always so ready to ridicule. 

The doctor leaned back in his chair, beaming 
at his wife. He was very proud of her when 
she talked and looked as she was doing now, 
and he was truly sorry when she was compelled 
to pause for sheer lack of breath. 

“ I am afraid I don’t know the lady of whom 
you are speaking,” Lynn said, as soon as he had 
a chance to speak. “ I haven’t been here, you 
know, since I could remember. Do you mean 
some one who lives over there in the house 
behind those silver poplars ? ” And then, he 
added artfully, “ It seems to be deserted.” 

“There is where Sidney Wendall lives, but 
she is never at home in the daytime. Her 
business takes her out. But Doris, the eldest 
daughter, is at home. She has always taken 
care of the house and the other children, 
and even of Uncle Watty. She used to do it 
when she wasn’t so high,” the doctor’s wife 
said, holding her hand about three feet from 
the porch floor. “ Such a lovely, golden-haired, 
dark-eyed, delicate little changeling, in that 
homely, rude, rough-and-tumble brood.” 

“ Is this beautiful Doris a child still ? ” in- 
quired the young man, deceitfully leading on 
nearer to what he wished to learn. 

“ Oh, no. I was speaking of years ago. 
Doris is about grown now, and prettier than 
ever. You’ll be sure to see her. There are very 
93 


Oldfield 


few young ladies in Oldfield. She seldom goes 
out, though. She stays close at home and takes 
care of things just as she always has done. It 
must be a lonely, dreary life for a girl, — and 
such a beauty too, — but she never seems to 
mind it. I heard her singing this morning 
about the time that you rode up.” 

“ I met Sidney coming out of the Watsons’ 
gate when I went in to see Tom in passing,” the 
doctor said suddenly, and with a different man- 
ner. “ I wish, Jane, that you would ask Sidney, 
the first time you see her, to go there as often 
as she can. Send her something, and tell her 
that I think her going would cheer up Tom.” 

“ Indeed ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Alexander, scath- 
ingly. “ Then Sidney’s ‘ gab,’ as you ungrateful 
men call it, has its uses after all ! ” 

“ I am not jesting now, my dear. I am seri- 
ously disturbed about Tom Watson. So far as 
I am able to judge, there is nothing more that 
surgery or medicine can do for him. The time 
has come, now when we have done our utmost 
for his body, that we must find some relief for 
his mind. He must not be allowed to sit there 
propped up by the window, staring out at the 
big road, and never trying to speak even the 
few indistinct words that he might utter, and 
always brooding, brooding — over his own awful 
condition. I’m afraid.” 

“ Well, I’ve done what I could,” said the 
doctor’s wife, quickly, as though her husband’s 
words bore some unspoken reproach. “ I know 
my double duty to a neighbor and a patient oi 
94 


The Doctor’s Dilemma 


yours, John. But I can’t go to see Tom Watson 
again. You never saw such a sad sight, Mr. 
Gordon. I actually dream about it after I have 
seen him. That is where the Watsons live,” 
she said, pointing to the house. “ I go every 
morning to the cross fence between our house 
and theirs, taking some little thing for Tom just 
to show that I have been thinking about him, 
and I call Anne to the other side of the fence 
and ask her how he is. But doing even that 
hurts her and hurts me, for she knows that I 
know that he never can be any better.” 

“ And I think he knows it too. That is the 
most terrible thing of all,” the doctor said, 
musingly, as if turning over ways and means in 
his mind. 

Mrs. Alexander looked at Lynn with a sud- 
den dimness shadowing the brightness of her 
kind eyes. “You don’t know the Oldfield 
people, Mr. Gordon, though you are really one 
of us. Unless you had known Tom Watson 
as we knew him, you can hardly understand 
how terrible and how strange his present con- 
dition seems to us. He used to be a great, 
strong, noisy, reckless, hot-tempered dare-devil, 
but as tender-hearted as a child and liked by 
everybody, black and white, big and little, in 
the whole country.” 

A sudden recollection caused her to smile at 
her husband, forgetting that she had just been 
scolding him and that he richly deserved it : — 

“You remember, John, that time when Tom 
kept those bear cubs tied up in his back lot. 

95 


Oldfield 


One day the biggest of them got loose and 
caught Sidney as she was going home with a 
pitcher of milk which Anne had given her. 
Sidney was almost scared out of her wits, and 
screamed as loud as she could, till the bear 
squeezed her so tight that she couldn’t make 
another sound. But she never let go the pitcher 
— never even loosed her grip — and kept on 
holding it out of the cub’s reach, long after she 
couldn’t scream any more. Tom went running. 
Can’t you see him now, John ? and hear him 
shouting at every jump : ‘ Let go, Sid. Good 
Gad — woman! are you going to let the bear 
hug the life out of you before you’ll give him 
that spoonful of milk ? ’ ” 

“And to think of poor Tom as he is now;” 
she went on presently, the smile fading. “ I will 
speak to Sidney as you suggest, John. I will 
send her a basket of sweet potatoes and urge 
her to go as often as she can. Anne would 
never think of asking any one to come, but I 
know she would be pleased to have Sidney drop 
in. She’s always like a fresh breeze on a hot day 
even to well folks. She told me, however, the 
other morning that Tom Watson never seemed 
to notice anything that she had to say. She said 
that, no matter how hard she tried to entertain 
him, he kept on staring out at the empty big 
road, just sitting there, not trying to speak, and 
looking like a dead man only for his restless, 
burning eyes.” 

“ And yet he may live for years just as he is 
now,” the doctor said. “ But we must not give 
96 


The Doctor’s Dilemma 


up trying to help him because he can never be 
any better. I must devise some sort of relief. It 
will not do to let him sit there, like that, all day, 
day after day — maybe for years. I tried this 
morning to find out what he was thinking 
about. I also tried to learn from Anne what his 
tastes were, what sort of things he had liked or 
was interested in before he met with the acci- 
dent. His sight is much impaired, and he 
seems never to have been anything of a reader. 
I doubt whether he ever had any indoor inter- 
ests, except playing cards. All that I can 
remember is that he used to gamble like the 
very devil.” 

“Shame on you, John, to be raking up that 
against the poor fellow, as he is now,” protested 
the doctor’s wife, indignantly. 

“Nonsense! Who’s raking anything up.?” 
the doctor responded. “ I was merely trying 
to think of some way of diverting his mind. I 
thought perhaps a game of cards — ” 

The doctor’s wife uttered a smothered little 
shriek: “John Alexander! What are you 
thinking of to speak of card-playing in Anne 
Watson’s house ? ” 

The doctor grew calmly judicial, as all good 
husbands grow when their wives become un- 
duly excited. “ I am well aware of Anne’s prej- 
udice. I know precisely how strong — ” 

“ Strong ! ” repeated his wife, interrupting 
him. “ It’s the strongest thing — the only 
really strong thing — In Anne — that, and 
her religion. Her horror of card-playing is a 

H 97 


Oldfield 


part of her religion. It’s bred in her bone. 
She got it from her father, the elder. Some 
people thought he was actually out of his head 
about cards. And Anne believes as firmly as he 
believed it, that cards are Satan’s chief weapon, 
and that even to touch them is to imperil the 
soul. She believes it as firmly as she believes 
in baptism for the remission of sins ; as firmly 
as she believes that there is a heaven and a hell.” 

All this breathless outpouring the doctor 
waved aside : “ As I have already said, my dear, 
I know perfectly well what Anne’s feeling used 
to be. Now, however, in Tom’s hopeless con- 
dition she will, of course, look at the matter 
with more reason.” 

“ Now isrCt that like a man? ” appealed Mrs. 
Alexander, to no one in particular, since she 
could hardly appeal to her visitor against his 
own sex. “Wouldn’t anybody but a man know 
that Anne would only stand the firmer for that 
very reason ? Any woman would see in a 
moment that the very fact of Anne’s knowing 
that her husband’s mortal life was hopelessly 
wrecked, could not fail to increase her resist- 
ance against a thing which she believes must 
lose him the life everlasting.” 

The doctor took his feet down from the porch 
railing, and tapped his pipe against the post 
with an unnecessary amount of noise. Lynn 
Gordon looked hard at the silver poplars on 
the other side of the big road. Different men 
have different ways of giving outward expres- 
sion to the embarrassment which every man 
98 


The Doctor’s Dilemma 

feels at a woman’s innocent frankness regarding 
spiritual things. Neither of these men spoke 
for a space. The doctor was casting about for 
the surest and swiftest way of fetching his wife 
back to some ground on which he felt rather 
more at home, and decidedly more secure of his 
own footing. 

“Anne knew that Tom was a born gambler; 
she knew it before she married him. Nobody 
but a woman — a fanatical visionary like Anne 
— would have been foolish enough to expect to 
change a leopard’s spots.” 

“ It doesn’t strike me as particularly foolish 
for Anne — or for any other woman — to ex- 
pect her husband to keep his promise not to 
get any new spots,” the lady retorted, with all 
the promptness and spirit that her husband 
anticipated. 

The doctor glanced at the young man as tri- 
umphantly as he dared, and the young man 
returned the doctor’s glance as non-committally 
as he could. They had both often observed be- 
fore this, as most observant people observe at 
some period of their lives, that while a man 
will defend another man whenever he can, re- 
gardless of his own feelings toward the individ- 
ual, he has never a word to say in defence 
of men ; and that, while a woman will seldom 
defend another woman without strong personal 
reasons, she is always ready, cap-a-pie, to defend 
women, through thick and thin. 

Nevertheless, the doctor was again a trifle 
disappointed to find his wife content with firing 
99 


Oldfield 


a single shot, and he presently said, trying to 
urge her on : — 

“ I have not disputed the fact that Anne 
Watson is a good woman. Tom no doubt 
made the promises that such men always make 
when they want to win some pretty girl, and 
he doubtless hoped to be strong enough to keep 
them. But I cannot allow a patient of mine 
to die or to fall into melancholy because he 
has failed to keep promises that many good 
men break ; or because his wife lacks common 
sense ; no matter how good she may be or what 
sort of religion she may be living up to. If Tom 
wants to play cards, — as I think that he does, 
as I am nearly sure that he does, — I shall cer- 
tainly find him a partner if I can. I would play 
with him myself if I knew how.” 

“ Let me do it, doctor,” said Lynn. “ I know 
something about several games. It would give 
me real pleasure to do anything in my power 
for your patient.” 

Mrs. Alexander said nothing more in opposi- 
tion ; she merely looked her thoughts. When, 
therefore, it was arranged, as the young man 
was leaving, that he should come on the fol- 
lowing morning to go with the doctor to see 
Tom Watson about the game of cards, the lady 
merely gave her smooth auburn head a side- 
wise toss, as if to say they would all see how it 
turned out. 


lOO 


VIII 


AT OLD LADY GORDON’S 

Lynn rode slowly by the Watson house, think- 
ing of its tragedy, which had thus touched him 
so soon after his coming to this quiet village, 
the seeming abode of peace. It was his first 
partial realization that the folded green hills 
cannot shut away the pain of the world. ‘He 
was too young and too strong, and had not 
suffered enough in mind or body, to know that 
quiet and peace only make the heart ache more 
keenly with the sorrow of living. 

And this was no more even now than a partial 
perception. He was but twenty-two, yet in the 
springtime of life ; and the earth also was still 
in the season of its perpetual youth. The green 
of new leafage now tinted the thinning white 
of the blossoming orchards ; the green and the 
white and the last rosy sweetness of apple 
blossoms were yet melting slowly into the rich 
verdure of the hillsides. But the snowy spray 
of all the exquisite flowering drifted fast before 
the incoming summer tide. Already the wild 
flowers were almost done blooming in the 
woods, and the scented meadows were growing 
red with clover blossoms. 

The largest, richest fields lying on both sides 


lOI 


Oldfield 


of the big road, knee-deep in clover and dotted 
with cattle, belonged to the Gordon estate. 
Ultimately they would all be his own, but he was 
not thinking of this as he looked at them that 
day. He had never thought of making Oldfield 
his home, having long cherished other plans. 
Yet, as he looked at the old house, it was a 
pleasant sight on that May morning, with its low 
white walls bowered in dense shrubbery and its 
mossy roof overhung by giant elms. There were 
many maples, also, and a cypress tree stood 
beside the gate, swinging its sombre plumes so 
close to the ground that the young man did 
not see a cart standing before the gate until he 
was almost upon it. Coming nearer, he saw 
that it belonged to a butcher who had driven in 
from the country, and that it was well filled with 
his wares. The butcher stood astride a plank 
which had been laid across the front wheels, 
and he was busily engaged in turning over the 
pieces of meat, evidently seeking something to 
please the mistress of the house. Old lady 
Gordon sat at the open window in her accus- 
tomed place, looking grimly on; and the small 
Frenchman who managed her farm waited be- 
side the cart, standing in silence, glancing anx- 
iously from its contents to the mistress and 
back again. The butcher scowled, as he tossed 
the steaks, the joints, and roasts about, thinking 
angrily how much more trouble it always was to 
please old lady Gordon than all the rest of the 
easy-going people living along his semi-weekly 
route. Finally, however, he found a piece which 
102 


At Old Lady Gordon’s 


seemed promising, and he handed it to the 
small Frenchman, who took the huge joint, — 
holding it as if it were a sword, — and jauntily 
carried it across the lawn to the window and held 
it up for the mistress to decide upon. She gave 
only one contemptuous glance at it ; one was 
enough to cause its rejection with great scorn. 

“No, I won’t have that ! ” she called out in 
her loud, deep, imperious voice, speaking to the 
butcher over her manager’s head. “ How many 
times must I tell you that I don’t like the bony 
parts } ” 

Monsieur Beauchamp suddenly dropped the 
joint as if it had burnt him, and started as if he 
had been stung. His face flushed scarlet, and 
he drew himself up to his fullest height. 

“Ah, madame,” he said poignantly yet proudly, 
“ I am stab to ze soul to hear you say zat you 
do not like ze Bonapartes ! ” 

“ For gracious’ sake ! ” old lady Gordon ex- 
claimed, taken quite off her guard; and dropping 
her turkey-wing fan in her start of amazement. 

In another moment she remembered, and 
forthwith did what she could to soothe the little 
Frenchman’s deeply wounded feelings. She 
turned away her head as her grandson drew near, 
and put up the turkey-wing fan to hide the smile 
which she could not control, when her gaze 
chanced to meet his as he looked on, a silent 
and interested spectator of the scene. 

“ Why, Mister Beauchamp,” she said, quite 
gravely, as soon as she could speak at all, “ I 
am amazed at your thinking that I meant any 
103 


Oldfield 


disrespect to your relations. How in the world 
could you think such a thing.? I give you my 
word of honor, that I have always believed the 
Bonapartes to be the only human beings ever 
created expressly to rule over the French.” 

Monsieur had begun to soften almost as soon 
as the mistress had begun to explain, and by 
the time the explanation was finished, he was 
fairly beaming with delight. One hand was 
already holding his hat, but the other was free, 
and this he now laid upon his heart, bringing 
his small heels together in a most impressive 
bow. And then, smiling and quite happy 
again, he picked up the rejected joint of mutton 
and carried it back to the cart very cheerfully 
indeed. The turning over of its contents was 
accordingly resumed for some time longer, until 
old lady Gordon consented at last to allow the 
butcher to leave a large roast. She shouted 
after him, nevertheless, as he rattled away ; tell- 
ing him at the top of her strong voice that he 
need not think that she would take another 
piece as tough and lean as this piece was; that 
he need have no such expectation the next time 
he came round. 

She told Lynn the story of the Frenchman 
when the young man had entered the room in 
which she always sat and, with her permission, 
had thrown himself down on the couch under 
the window. But she could not answer his 
question about Monsieur Beauchamp imme- 
diately, because Eunice, the fat black cook, 
chanced to come in just at that moment for a 
104 


At Old Lady Gordon’s 

consultation over the dinner, and the meals in 
old lady Gordon’s house were always the sub- 
jects of very grave consideration, requiring a 
considerable length of time. 

While the mistress and the cook were thus 
conferring, the young man gazed carelessly, and 
yet curiously, around this large low room in 
which his grandmother lived, and had spent 
the greater part of her life ; and in which his 
father had been born. The low ceiling had 
been covered with canvas years before, but the 
original white of the canvas had long since 
turned to a smoky brown. The walls, which 
had never been plastered, were also covered with 
canvas, and afterward had been hung with old- 
fashioned wall-paper in hunting scenes. These 
had faded into a general effect of hazy dimness, 
but Lynn’s keen young eyes made out the 
hunters, the hounds, and the game, as he lay 
idle with his long arms under his handsome 
dark head, wondering what sort of man his 
grandfather had been. He had heard it said 
that rooms are like the people who live in 
them, and, recalling the saying, he wondered 
again whether this room was now as it used to 
be in his grandfather’s time. There stood his 
grandfather’s secretary in one corner, still filled 
with papers, just as he must have left it. The 
bed in the opposite corner must also have 
stood in the same place for many a year. It 
had been a very stately edifice, a magnificent 
structure, in its day. It even yet upheld a 
heavy tester of faded crimson damask, gathered 
105 


Oldfield 


to the centre under a great golden star of tar- 
nished splendor. It had evidently once been of 
imposing height, and it was still of unusual width, 
but it had lost something of its height with age, 
as human beings do. It had been much too 
high for old lady Gordon to climb into and out 
of, as easily as she liked, when she began to 
grow stouter and more indolent, and it was not 
her way to submit to any inconvenience which 
she could avoid. So that the thick mahogany 
legs of the grand old bed had been sawed off 
by degrees — as old lady Gordon’s ease required 
— till it now squatted under its big, dusty red 
tester like some absurd turbaned old Turk. 
Lynn smiled as he looked at it, letting his gaze 
wander on to the tall chest of drawers, to the 
high-backed split-bottomed chairs, to a great 
oaken chest at the foot of the bed — to all the 
homely, comfortable, unbeautiful things. 

Looking at his grandmother, who was still 
' absorbed in the consultation with the cook, the 
young man suddenly felt how like her face his 
own was ; feeling it with the curiously mingled 
uneasiness and satisfaction which come to most 
of us when we recognize ancestral traits in our 
own spirits, our own minds, or our own bodies. 
She was a large, tall old woman, still handsome 
and even shapely, despite her many years and 
her great weight. Her chin was square and 
her forehead broad, yet her grandson was some- 
how pleased to think that his own chin was 
more delicately rounded, and that his forehead 
was higher than hers while not less broad, and 

io6 


At Old Lady Gordon’s 


that his mouth was clearer cut. Still, the strong 
likeness was there, in every one of the features 
of their two faces and most of all in their eyes 
— long, large, deep, thick-lashed, heavy-browed, 
and as black as human eyes ever are ; and now 
as old lady Gordon turned her head, the young 
man saw with a kind of shock that his grand- 
mother’s eyes were almost as young, too, as his 
own. For young eyes in an old face are not a 
pleasant sight to see. It seems better for the 
ageless, unwearied spirit, thus looking out, to 
have grown old with the wearied body, so that 
both together may be ready for the Rest. 

Old lady Gordon noticed her grandson’s 
gaze, as soon as Eunice had gone from the 
room, and recognized the admiration which 
partly occupied his thoughts. She accordingly 
smiled at him, settling comfortably back in 
her broad, low rocking-chair. She wore a 
loose flowing wrapper of fine white muslin, as 
she always did in warm weather. In the winter 
she always wore the same garment made of fine 
white wool, covering it with a long black cloak 
on the rare occasions upon which she left the 
house during cold weather. It was a most un- 
usual dress and one of peculiar distinction, but 
old lady Gordon took neither of these facts into 
the slightest account. She wore the fine white 
muslin in the summer because it was cooler 
than anything else ; and she wore the white wool 
in the winter for the reason that, while warm 
and soft, it would wash with less trouble than 
colored stuffs, when she dropped things on it 

lO’J 


Oldfield 


at the table, as she did at almost every meal. 
It is, perhaps, often just as well that we cannot 
know the causes which bring about many pleas- 
ing and even poetic results. Old lady Gordon’s 
servants, especially Dilsey the washerwoman, 
held opinions somewhat different from hers con- 
cerning the greater convenience of constantly 
wearing white in winter as well as in summer. 
But old lady Gordon never took that into ac- 
count either ; neither that nor anything whatso- 
ever that ever touched her own comfort at all 
adversely. 

“ Come and hand me my bag, I want a cough- 
drop,” she said to Lynn that day, yawning. 
“ It’s too far round on the back of the chair for 
me to reach it.” 

Lynn sprang to serve her and handed her the 
bag.’ It was the first time that he had seen it; 
that is to say, it was the first time that he had 
really observed the bag ; he must, of course, have 
seen it, since no one ever saw old lady Gordon 
without it. During the day it always hung on 
the back of the chair in which she sat when not 
at the table ; when she sat at the table it always 
hung on the knob of the dining-room chair. 
Through the night it always swung from the 
post of her bed close to her hand. When she 
drove out in her ancient coach the bag went 
with her. And a wonderful bag it was ! There 
were many more things in it than mere cough- 
drops. There were various other sorts of drops 
— drops for the gouty pain which sometimes 
assailed old lady Gordon’s toe, and drops of 

io8 


At Old Lady Gordon’s 

good old brandy for cramp after overeating. 
And there were candles and matches, all ready 
for lighting if she should chance to grow wake- 
ful through the night, and always plenty of 
novels ; and numerous simple toilet articles, 
such as a hairbrush and comb, together with 
biscuits and hair-oil and tea-cakes and hand- 
kerchiefs and an occasional piece of pie. It 
would indeed be hard to think of anything 
that old lady Gordon could have needed or 
desired, during the day or the night; or even 
have fancied that she wanted, without finding it 
ready to her hand in that wonderful bag. There 
was a hand-bell in it, too, though the bell usu- 
ally lay at the very bottom of the bag, under 
everything else, because there was hardly ever 
any occasion for ringing it. The bag was a 
very gradual evolution, like most complete in- 
ventions. Old lady Gordon herself had given 
a good deal of thought for a good many years 
to the bringing of it to its ultimate state of per- 
fection ; and Eunice the cook and Patsey the 
housemaid had both concentrated their atten- 
tion upon it more and more as the mistress’s 
wants and demands increased; until it had now 
become so comprehensive that Eunice rarely 
had to be summoned out of her cabin, at 
midnight, to give old lady Gordon a lunch; 
and Patsey was able, as a rule, to sleep the 
whole night through on her pallet in the pas- 
sage outside the mistress’s door; no matter 
whether that lady might suddenly crave refresh- 
ment, or whether several kinds of drops might 
109 


Oldfield 


be needed in consequence of a too hearty 
supper. 

When old lady Gordon had taken the cough- 
drops out of the bag, and Lynn had replaced it 
on the back of her chair, within easier reach, 
she answered his question, which he had almost 
forgotten in his wondering observation of the 
bag. 

“You were asking about little Beauchamp,” 
she said. “Your grandfather found him some- 
where and brought him home with him a long 
time ago. He has been here ever since. I 
don’t remember how long ago that was. I 
don’t know anything about him before he came. 
I hardly noticed him, in fact, until after your 
grandfather’s death, when I found him useful in 
helping me manage the farm.” 

The grandson looked at the grandmother in 
silence, paying little heed to what she was say- 
ing of the Frenchman. He was wondering why 
she said “your grandfather” instead of saying 
“ my husband.” He had already noted that she 
invariably said “ your father ” instead of saying 
“ my son.” He knew little of women’s ways, 
having lost his mother before he could remem- 
ber, so that his life had been mostly among 
men, and he knew nothing whatever of his 
grandmother. Yet he felt, nevertheless, that a 
wife and mother who had loved her husband 
and her son would not speak of them to her 
grandson as “your grandfather” and “your 
father,” as his grandmother did. He had also 
a curious, half-amused, half-indignant feeling 
no 


At Old Lady Gordon’s 

that her doing so was intended to make him 
feel somehow responsible for something which 
she disliked, and did not wish to assume re- 
sponsibility for herself. 

“ I never thought of asking your grandfather 
where he found him,” old lady Gordon went on 
indifferently. “ Most likely it was in New 
Orleans. The few foreigners in this country 
mostly came from there. Your grandfather 
used to go there pretty often with flatboat- 
loads of horses. But it doesn’t matter where 
Beauchamp came from in the first place. He’s 
mighty useful to me now, wherever it was. I 
really don’t see how I could get along without 
him. He is a faithful, honest, industrious little 
soul. Of course that bat in his belfry flies out 
now and then — as you saw and heard. I try 
to remember it, but I forget sometimes. And 
how could a body guard against such an un- 
heard-of thing as that was ? ” She laughed 
lazily, fanning herself with the turkey-wing, and 
rocking slowly and heavily. “ He isn’t a bit 
luny about anything else, and he is just as use- 
ful to me as if he didn’t believe he was the 
son of Napoleon Bonaparte. I don’t care if he 
thinks he’s Julius Caesar himself. What’s the 
odds — since it never interferes with his work? 
And his wife’s a treasure too, in a different 
way. There’s nothing French or flighty about 
her. She belongs around here — somewhere in 
the Pennyroyal Region. I don’t know or re- 
member where he picked her up. She is a 
great, slow-witted, homely, slab-sided drudge, 


Oldfield 


almost twice his size. And such a worker ! 
She never turns her head when he calls her 
the ‘ Empress Maria.’ She just goes straight 
along, hoeing the garden and making butter. 
But — all the same — she thinks the sun rises 
and sets in him.” 

The young man laughed. “ Fine ! And he 
no doubt thinks she hung the moon.” 

His grandmother looked at him more atten- 
tively than she had done hitherto. She had 
never been thrown with men of quick mind, 
and was not accustomed to such ready re- 
sponse. She liked quickness of perception as 
she liked all bright and pleasant things ; and 
she disliked slowness of understanding as she 
disliked everything tiresome — like the sybarite 
that she was. 

“ Certainly he does. That’s always the way,” 
she in turn responded, smilingly. “ The worse 
mated the married seem to be — to outsiders, 
the better they appear to suit one another. 
Talk about ‘careful, judicious selection!”’ 
Old lady Gordon made an inarticulate but elo- 
quent sound of scornful incredulity. “ If you 
were to rush out there in the big road this 
minute — with your eyes shut — and seize the 
first passer-by, you would have just as much 
chance of knowing what you were doing — 
what you were getting — as you ever will have! ” 

Lynn wondered again what sort of a man his 
grandfather could have been. And his young 
mother, whom he had never known ? Had this 
cynical old woman disapproved of her, had she 


At Old Lady Gordon’s 

been unkind to her? There is always some- 
thing repellent to wholesome youth in the 
cynicism of the old. Feeling this, Lynn said 
rather coldly that he had thought little of such 
matters, he had been too much absorbed in 
other things, in laying life plans which must be 
quite apart from all thoughts of love and mar- 
riage for a good many years. The mere mention 
of these cherished plans brought a flush to his 
dark cheeks, and caused him to sit more proudly 
erect. They were seldom far absent from his 
mind, and the main thought lying nearest the 
heart is never long unspoken by frank young 
lips. It was less than a year since he had been 
graduated from the Harvard Law School, but 
his deep-laid plans lay far back of his gradua- 
tion. He could hardly remember when he had 
not seen the path of his ambition straight and 
distinct before him. It was a steep one, to be 
sure, and hard and long, as the road to the 
heights must ever be. But he had faced all 
this wholly undaunted, knowing the power 
within himself, and the additional strength 
which fortune had given him. Yet he was a 
modest young fellow, and simple-hearted as 
well as single-minded. There was in him little 
vanity in his personal gifts, little pride in his 
inherited possessions. He simply recognized 
these as lucky accidents, for which he could 
claim no credit; holding them merely as the 
means whereby he might hope, more confi- 
dently than most young men, to reach the 
utmost limit of his ambition. The right to 
I 113 


Oldfield 


practise law was already his, and the rest of 
the way upward must open as he pressed ear- 
nestly and untiringly onward, — the bar, the 
bench, the supreme bench, those must be 
within the winning of any man having fair 
ability, unbounded capacity for hard work, and 
abundant means to wait for its fruition; and 
he knew himself to be possessed of all these. 
This seemed to him the highest ambition pos- 
sible to an American, as perhaps it was, in those 
days when the ermine was still held unspotted, 
high above the mire of politics. 

And yet, notwithstanding these lofty aims 
and matured plans, Lynn Gordon was very 
young, hardly more than a boy, after all, in many 
things, so that he soon began to talk with boyish 
openness of the herculean task which he thus 
had set himself in sober earnest. His grand- 
mother listened with such intense interest, such 
thorough understanding, and such complete 
sympathy as surprised herself far more than it 
surprised her grandson. She was taken wholly 
unawares, — not dreaming of finding him any- 
thing like this, — having looked forward to his 
coming with but lukewarm enthusiasm. 

The old who have been disappointed in almost 
everything that they have ever set their hearts 
upon, cease, after a while, to expect anything, 
and learn to shield themselves against further 
disappointment by real or assumed indifference. 
Old lady Gordon in her fierce pride had never 
owned, even to herself, how deep and bitter and 
lasting had been her disappointment in her own 


At Old Lady Gordon’s 

son. It counted for nothing with her that he 
had been what many would have considered a 
good man, though not an intellectual man in 
the estimation of any one. To his mother his 
goodness had seemed but the negative virtue of 
an undecided character and a mediocre mind. 
For the best love of a nature like hers cannot 
be born of mere toleration, even in a mother’s 
heart. This mother — being what she was — 
might perhaps have come nearer to forgiving the 
things which were lacking, had this only child 
been a daughter. A woman like old lady Gor- 
don never expects much of another woman, even 
though she be her own daughter. But she 
always expects everything of every man, espe- 
cially when he belongs to her own family, and 
thus it was that old lady Gordon never could 
wholly forgive her only son. Least of all could 
she ever quite forgive him for being his father 
over again ; an almost unpardonable offence 
which other poorly gifted children have com- 
mitted in the eyes of other embittered mothers, 
who have illogically expected, as poor old lady 
Gordon had expected, to gather figs from 
thistles. 

When she had first faced the truth in the 
prime of life, her fierce pride had raised the 
iron shield of pretended indifference, and she 
had upheld it so long that it had gradually 
grown into the rusty armor of age’s insensi- 
bility. And yet, through all its steely cold- 
ness, the young man’s warm words now struck 
fire. A deep glow came into the impassive, 
”5 


Oldfield 


handsome old face, and a warm light into the 
hard, fine old eyes, as she looked at this spir- 
ited, strong, determined, capable young fellow, 
with his brilliant face aglow, and his intelligent 
eyes alight. She suddenly felt him to be much 
more her own spirit and flesh and blood than 
his father had ever been. It seemed for an 
instant as if her own strenuous youth, with its 
impassioned visions of conquest — so long for- 
gotten — came rushing back through the elo- 
quent lips of her grandson. 


ii6 


IX 


A ROMANTIC REGION 

But, alas, the habits of age are always fixed, 
and its enthusiasms are mostly fleeting. At 
breakfast, on the next morning, old lady Gordon 
was as stolidly absorbed in the food which she 
was eating as she usually was in her meals. 
Her cynicism, her indifference, too, had all 
come back. 

Both came promptly into play, when Lynn 
chanced to remember his promise to play cards 
with the sick man, and mentioned it, which he 
had forgotten to do on the day before, in the 
intenser interest of the talk about his own 
future. The old lady smiled sardonically and 
chewed on deliberately, while the young man 
gave an account of what had taken place at 
the doctor’s house. 

“ Anne won’t allow it,” she finally said. “ If 
anything could have changed her or have taken 
the nonsense out of her, it would have been 
seeing Tom go to destruction, mainly because 
she went to meeting. A woman like Anne 
takes to religion just as immoderately as a man 
like Tom takes to gambling.” 

Lynn did not speak at once. He was feeling 
the uneasiness which comes over right-minded 
youth at any sign of irreligion in the old. 

117 


Oldfield 


“ I thought every man liked his wife to go to 
church, however seldom he might go himself,” 
he finally advanced hesitatingly. 

“ And so he does, when he doesn’t happen to 
want her to stay at home,” said old lady Gordon, 
with a cynical laugh. “ But I’ve never known 
a husband pious enough to like his wife’s reli- 
gion to interfere with his own comfort or 
wishes. And Tom really needed Anne a good 
deal more than her church did. There are 
men who are as sure to go wrong if their wives 
leave them alone, as ships are to drift without 
their rudders — and Tom Watson was one of 
these. He had little or no intellectual re- 
sources, — none at all, probably, within himself, 
— and he was consequently entirely dependent 
upon companionship. That sort of male ani- 
mal always is, and if he can’t get good com- 
pany he takes bad, simply because he has to 
have company of some kind. Every sensible 
woman understands that sort of man, especially 
if she is married to him ; and she knows, too, 
just what she’s got to do, unless she’s willing to 
take the certain consequences of not doing it. 
Any other woman than Anne would have 
thought she was lucky when Tom didn’t take 
to anything worse than cards.” 

Lynn was glad when the breakfast was over. 
He did not like his grandmother in this mood 
nearly so well as he had liked her in the kindly 
responsive one of the night before ; and yet, 
although he knew her but slightly, he felt sure 
that this mood was more natural, or, at all 

ii8 


A Romantic Region 

events, more habitual, to her, than the other. 
It was most likely this instinctive feeling which 
had unconsciously kept him — during the talk 
with her on the previous day — from speaking 
of the beautiful girl whom he had seen. He 
now felt more distinctly, though still without 
knowing why, that he did not wish to.hear his 
grandmother speak of her or of her environ- 
ment, as he now knew that the old lady would 
speak. He already understood enough, remem- 
bering the kind things which the doctor’s lady 
had told him, to anticipate the different pres- 
entation of the widow Wendall and her family 
that his grandmother would certainly make. 

He left her as soon as he could, offering his 
engagement with Dr. Alexander as a ready ex- 
cuse. Passing out into the quiet, empty big 
road, he walked along under the old locust trees 
which lined one side of the way. The locusts 
were flowering, and the long clusters of pure 
white flowers, swinging among the dull gray- 
green of the feathery foliage, filled the fresh 
air of the May morning with wholesome sweet- 
ness. The shrubs in the yards, bordering the 
length of the big road with the vivid verdure 
of new leaves, were also in bloom. The young 
man smelled the honeysuckle blossoming thick 
over the sick man’s window, but he did not look 
that way. He looked, naturally enough, in 
the opposite direction, where the silver poplars 
stood, since the interests and the sympathies 
of youth must always lie on the other side of 
life’s big road, away from all affliction and pain. 


Oldfield 


He was not sorry to find that the doctor had 
gone into the country in answer to an urgent 
call, and that the visit to the invalid conse- 
quently must be postponed. He was sorry, 
however, to see the white curtain of the house 
behind the poplars hanging precisely as it had 
hung on the previous day; and, although he 
walked to the top of the hill beyond the house 
and, turning, strolled slowly back again in 
front of the window, he had no second glimpse 
of Doris. Thus idly strolling, he went along 
the big road, stopping now and then to lean 
over a fence to look at the hyacinths and 
tulips, which were at their sweetest and bright- 
est in most of the front yards ; or to linger be- 
side the rosy clover fields to drink in the fra- 
grance and to watch the vernal happiness of 
the birds. He paused occasionally , to lift his 
hat smilingly to the friendly faces which smiled 
at him from the vine-wreathed windows and the 
wide-open doors; but, loiter as he might, he 
saw nothing more of the girl of whom he was 
thinking and hoping to meet, and although he 
delayed his return as long as he could, he was 
still back at his grandmother’s house all too 
soon. 

No one could walk through Oldfield a second 
time on the same morning without a visible or 
audible explanation to a public who had plenty 
of leisure to note the few passers-by, and to 
speculate upon their possible destination, and 
to discuss the most probable reasons for their 
going up or coming down the big road. Lynn 
120 


A Romantic Region 


had an instinctive perception of this, little as 
he knew of the life of the village. Accordingly 
he now paused uncertainly at his grandmother’s 
gate and stood still, not knowing what to do 
with the perfect day, with the ideal Ides of 
May. 

Looking idly toward the northern hilltops, he 
saw the figure of a horseman suddenly break the 
sky line and rush galloping downward into the 
village. Onward thundered the big black horse 
and his strange rider, sweeping by like a whirl- 
wind, and speeding on and on, till they vanished 
over the southern hilltops. A light cloud of 
dust floated for a moment between the farthest 
green and the farthest blue, and then that too 
disappeared, and the coming and going of the 
wild apparition might well have been some trick 
of a fantastic imagination. And yet Lynn had 
received a curiously distinct impression of the 
man’s appearance in this space of time, brief 
almost as a lightning flash. He had seen the 
foreign dress, the great boots so long that they 
were slit to the knee ; the blood-red handker- 
chief tied loosely around the neck, and, most 
distinctly of all, the sinister expression of the 
dark, deeply lined face and the wildness of the 
black eyes under the wide, flapping, soft brim 
of the large sombrero hat. Altogether it was so 
strange, so unreal an interruption of the peace 
of this pastoral spot, that the young man could 
only stand silent gazing after it in bewildered 
surprise. 

“That’s Alvarado! You’ve seen one of the 


Oldfield 


sights of the country,” his grandmother called 
out to him from her place by the window. 

“ Who is Alvarado ? ” he asked, when he had 
entered the room. 

“ That is a question which a good many peo- 
ple have been asking for a good many years, 
and nobody has ever had a satisfactory answer,” 
old lady Gordon replied. 

Smiling her sardonic smile, she deliberately 
turned down the leaf of the novel which she 
had been reading as usual, and laid it on her 
lap. She was always amused by these histri- 
onic appearances of Alvarado which so terrified 
most of the Oldfield people. It had indeed 
long been known all over the Pennyroyal Re- 
gion that, while other folks always drove hastily 
into the nearest fence corner whenever they saw 
Alvarado coming, old lady Gordon invariably 
kept straight along in the middle of the big 
road — never turning one hair’s breadth to 
the right or the left — and that Alvarado was 
always the one who had to turn out. She said 
nothing of this, however, and thought nothing 
of it; but she told her grandson all that she 
knew or that any one knew of Alvarado. 

He was a Spaniard who had suddenly ap- 
peared in the vicinity of Oldfield, some twenty- 
five years before. No one had any knowledge 
of him previous to that time, and no one had 
ever known where he came from. Yet, for 
some reason never clearly understood, his com- 
ing had, nevertheless, been associated from the 
first with the scattering of the Gulf pirates 


122 


A Romantic Region 

which had followed the deposing of their last 
king. It is true that Lafitte was long since 
gone to render his awful account of the terrible 
deeds done in the body- — with perhaps his 
desperate service at the battle of New Orleans 
as the largest item on the other side of the 
blotted ledger. But the death of Lafitte in 1826 
did not immediately free the Gulf from its fear- 
ful scourge. The passing of piracy was gradual, 
very gradual indeed, and even long drawn out, 
as the traders of the Pennyroyal Region knew 
only too well, through their close and continual 
connection with New Orleans by route of the 
flatboat. There was, therefore, to the minds 
of the Oldfield people, nothing improbable in 
the continued existence of numbers of Lafitte’s 
followers, who were younger than himself and 
consequently not yet really old men. Still, 
while there was no impossibility or even any 
improbability in Alvarado’s being a comrade 
of Lafitte, there appeared no actual proof that he 
ever had been. According to old lady Gordon’s 
account, the principal grounds of suspicion were 
these : his appearance, which was otherwise un- 
accounted for, just at the time that the pirates 
were being driven from the Gulf and out of 
the Gulf states ; his frequent, long, and myste- 
rious absences at sea after his coming to live 
in the vicinity of Oldfield ; the fabulous sums 
of gold and silver fetched home by him from 
these voyages, when he was known not to have 
any visible means of making money ; the many 
curious weapons of marine warfare scattered 

123 


Oldfield 


through his strange house, which was half a 
fort, half a farmhouse, and wholly barbaric in its 
rough richness of furnishing; the generally cred- 
ited rumor that he habitually wore a coat of mail ; 
the well-known fact — open for every passer-by 
to see — that he kept a horse standing con- 
tinually at his gate, day and night, for years, 
saddled and bridled, with pistols in the holsters, 
apparently ready for instant flight. 

Many of these things old lady Gordon had 
seen with her own eyes. Most of them she 
knew to be true, but she had never gone to his 
house, although he had at one time received a 
measure of social recognition, when — accord- 
ing to old lady Gordon — there had been some- 
thing like real society in Oldfield. He was 
rather a handsome man after a sinister, foreign 
fashion, although he had been past youth when 
he first came to Oldfield, and he had a dash- 
ing way with him which fascinated the un- 
observant. It was in this manner that he was 
thrown with Alice Fielding, the colonel’s pret- 
tiest and youngest daughter, so old lady Gordon 
said. 

“You mean the old gentleman whom I saw 
yesterday.? That stately, beautiful old man with 
the silver hair curling on his shoulders, and 
wearing the long black cloak.?” Lynn said. 

“ That’s the man, but I wish you might have 
seen him in those days. He was just about as 
fiery as Alvarado, though in a slightly more 
civilized way, and he never wanted Alice to 
have anything to do with him. He never 

124 


A Romantic Region 

wanted the Spaniard around his house at all. 
No man like Colonel Fielding — English in 
every drop of blood — ever wants anything to 
do with any foreigner. But there’s no use 
in trying to manage a girl like Alice Field- 
ing, — a little, soft, say-nothing, characterless 
thing, — there’s nothing in her strong enough 
to get a good firm hold on. She’s blown like 
a feather this way and that way by the strong- 
est influence — good or bad — that she falls 
under. You’ll find the kind, and plenty of 
them, all over the world. The Fielding ne- 
groes used to say Alvarado threw a spell over 
Alice. I presume he did, but it was the spell 
which that sort of man always throws over that 
sort of girl. She was a flighty, vain little crea- 
ture, and flattered of course by his being so 
madly in love. That was plain enough for any- 
body to see. Nobody ever doubted that he 
loved her. But she had never thought of 
marrying him until she was terrified into doing 
it. She was probably in love with John Stanley 
so far as she was capable of loving any man. 
It was said they were upon the verge of becom- 
ing engaged to be married. I don’t know 
about that, but there was no doubt of John’s 
loving her. It took him years to get over her 
marriage to Alvarado.” 

“ I don’t understand. Why did she marry 
him ? ” asked Lynn. 

“ Through sheer fright mixed with a kind of 
silly romance, as nearly as anybody ever could 
make out. It happened in this way. There 
125 


Oldfield 


was some kind of a party at Colonel Fielding’s. 
There always was something going on while his 
girls were young and gay; and there is plenty 
of room in the jailer’s residence for any kind of 
entertainment — and many’s the ball and dinner 
they gave ! That night Alvarado was one of the 
guests, as he often was. Nobody knows what 
led up to the outbreak, but he suddenly fell on the 
floor in convulsions, stiff and stark and black in 
the face, and actually foaming at the mouth — a 
sight, they said, to make the strongest shudder. 
The doctor was hurriedly called out of the 
supper room and at once shut the door of the 
room in which Alvarado was lying — at the point 
of death as everybody thought. As the guests 
huddled together whispering, it flew all over the 
house that he had taken poison and that he re- 
fused to take an antidote unless Alice would 
consent to marry him. Your father was there 
and saw her go into the room, and he said 
afterwards that she looked as much like a 
dead woman then, as she did a year later when 
she lay in her coffin. No one, except those who 
were in the room, ever knew what happened, 
but the colonel presently came to the door 
and sent for the preacher. It was a dancing 
party, or he would have been there already, as 
almost everybody else was. But it didn’t take 
long to fetch him, and he married Alvarado to 
Alice Fielding then and there.” 

“ And John Stanley.'’ ” inquired Lynn. 

“ He knew nothing of the marriage till he 
came to see Alice on the next Sunday as he 


A Romantic Region 

always did. He didn’t live in Oldfield at that 
time. He had gone away soon after another 
unlucky affair which most men wouldn’t have 
worried about, but which seems to have had a 
lifelong effect upon him. He was always a 
sensitive, high-strung fellow and deeply reli- 
gious — full of lofty ideals and all that sort of 
thing — even then, when he was hardly more 
than a lad. He had come here only a week or 
so before to take an assistant’s place in the 
clerk’s office. He was a cousin of Jack Mitchell, 
the county clerk — that’s the way he happened 
to come. Well, Jack Mitchell was a politician 
and as high a talker and as low a doer as 
was to be found betwixt the Cumberland and 
Green River, which is saying a good deal. I 
reckon he couldn’t be more than matched in 
these days. I haven’t noticed much change in 
politicians during the last quarter of a century. 
Jack had been elected by a large majority, and 
was reelected, and had his hand fairly on a higher 
rung of the political ladder, when he made a 
false step and slipped. The trouble came from 
a foolish quarrel caused by drink. Jack Mitchell 
always was quarrelsome when in liquor, and on 
that day he happened to accuse another Ken- 
tuckian of cowardice. That, of course, was 
crossing the dead-line. It was just the same 
then that it is now and always will be, till our 
blood and training are different. And the fact 
that the man who had been branded as a coward 
was a worthless loafer, made no more difference 
then than it would make now. The wretch 
127 


Oldfield 


who had been ‘ insulted ’ rose up, as soon as he 
was sober enough, and borrowed a shot-gun 
and went to wipe out his dishonor, just as if 
he had been a real gentleman. Jack, with 
his usual luck, was not in the office when his 
enemy, who was still drinking heavily, suddenly 
appeared in the doorway, levelling the gun. He 
was not so drunk, though, that he didn’t know 
that he was aiming at a boy whom he had never 
seen before, in place of the man whom he had 
come to kill. He knew it well enough, for he 
muttered something about killing the young one 
if he couldn’t get the old one. But John Stanley 
was too quick for him. Jack’s pistol lay 
handy, as it always did, as pistols always do, 
hereabouts. The boy hardly knew what was 
happening before he had shot dead a man 
whose name he didn’t know — a man whom 
he had never seen or heard of before.” 

“ What a strange story,” Lynn said. “ I 
think I have never heard a stranger one.” 

“ Oh, I don’t know about it’s being strange. 
Of course somebody had to be killed,” old lady 
Gordon responded indifferently. 

“ Somebody had to be killed — and why ? ” 
repeated Lynn, wonderingly; for, although to 
the manner born he was not to the manner bred. 

“ Oh, well, when things get into that shape 
somebody’s bound to be killed ! When a Ken- 
tuckian is accused of cowardice he has to kill 
somebody to prove his courage. There’s noth- 
ing else to be done — apparently. And it might 
as well have been Betts as anybody else.” 

128 


A Romantic Region 

She yawned, and swayed her turkey-wing fan. 

“ It would all have blown over and have 
passed, as all such things pass in this country, 
if John Stanley hadn’t been morbid about it, if 
he had been at all like other people. Of course 
he was acquitted at the examining trial. There 
were plenty of witnesses to the fact that he fired 
in self-defence. The family of the man who 
was killed never made a motion toward taking 
the matter up, and they would have been ready 
enough to do it if they could have found any 
pretext for blaming John. They were, in fact, 
rather looked down on for taking it so easy. 
But John has never forgiven himself ; he has 
always thought he might have done some- 
thing else than what he did. He has rarely 
mentioned it to any one, but I understand 
that he once told Miss Judy that, if it were 
to do over again, he would run the risk of 
being killed himself rather than take the life 
of any human being. As I have said, he was 
always very religious, even then, and this was, I 
suppose, the reason why he brooded so over the 
affair. To this day he’s more like a praying 
monk shut up in a cell than he’s like the 
famous judge of a large circuit.” 

“ Of course he never married,” said Lynn. 

“ Oh, yes, he did — but not for a long time ; 
not for years and years after that Spanish tiger 
had made an end of that foolish little kitten. 
Alice lived only a few months. They said that 
Alvarado wasn’t unkind ; that he even tried to 
be kind in his way. But Alice seemed to hate 

K 129 


Oldfield 


him — as much as she was capable of hating any- 
body — when she found out how he had tricked 
her ; that he hadn’t taken poison at all when he 
pretended he had, and that the awful-looking 
foam on his lips had come from chewing soap,” 
“Don’t — don’t!” cried the young man. 
“Leave the romance. Tell me about Judge 
Stanley — though he too has done what he 
could to spoil the story by marrying. What sort 
of woman is his wife ? Poor little Alice I ” 

“ I’ve never seen his wife. She has been here 
only once or twice, for a few days at a time. They 
say she is a high-flier and very ambitious. John 
didn’t begin to go up very high in the world till 
after he had married her. She no doubt makes 
him a much better wife than Alice ever could 
have made. A silly, big-eyed, clinging, crying 
little woman who doesn’t weigh a hundred pounds 
can drag down the strongest man like a mill- 
stone around his neck. That apparently harm- 
less little creature managed to ruin the lives of 
two big strong men — each worth half a dozen 
of her for all useful purposes. John Stanley 
certainly has never seen a day’s happiness, and 
there can be no sort of doubt that Alvarado has 
been partially demented ever since her death. 
His craziness seems to take the form of sense- 
less litigation. He appears unable to keep away 
from the court-house when he knows that John 
Stanley is here, and he is always bringing 
lawsuits on ridiculous pretexts, so that the 
judge is compelled to rule them out of court. 
Alvarado is forever trying to find a chance to 

130 


A Romantic Region 

pick a quarrel with the judge, but he might 
■”st as well give it up. He will never be able, 
no matter how hard he tries, or how insulting 
he may be, to drag John Stanley into a duel or 
even into a quarrel.” 

“ Why ? ” asked the young man in surprise, 
not understanding. “ Is the Spaniard such a 
terrible person ? Is the judge afraid ? ” 

“ Afraid — John Stanley afraid ! ” repeated 
old lady Gordon, scornfully. “ He never knew 
what fear was. For calm, cool, unflinching cour- 
age in the face of the greatest danger, I have 
never known his equal. If I could remember 
and tell you some of the brave things that that 
man has done. Why, when he was only a 
lad he seized a lamp which had exploded and 
coolly held it in his bare hands — with the blaz- 
ing oil burning the flesh to the bone — till he 
could carry it to a place of safety, rather than 
endanger the lives of other people by throwing 
it down. No longer than a year or two ago he 
nearly lost his own life by saving an old negro 
woman from a runaway horse. John Stanley 
is no more afraid of Alvarado than he is of me. 
It’s all on account of his queer notions of 
religion, of humanity, and of the sacredness of 
human life. It all grew out of that unlucky 
accident of his youth, a matter that another 
man would not have given a second thought to. 
His fear, his horror of shedding blood has 
gradually grown more and more intense, until 
it seems to have become a positive mania. 
Nothing now can ever drive him from it. 


Oldfield 


Alvarado may as well give up trying to provoke 
him into a quarrel. But he on his side is quite 
as determined as John Stanley. He will never 
give it up; he’s no doubt been at the court- 
house hatching some plot this very day. I 
often wonder what the end will be, should both 
of the men go on living. To think of all the 
wrong and wretchedness that one foolish baby 
face can cause ! ” 

Lynn did not cry out again, half in earnest 
and half in jest, begging his grandmother to 
spare romance; but he got up, silently, and 
took a turn or two about the room. He was 
genuinely shocked to find himself feeling the 
repulsion which her lack of womanliness forced 
upon him. The merciless cynicism revealed 
by everything that she said might have amused 
him had he heard it from another person ; 
but he was uncontrollably repulsed by it com- 
ing from his father’s mother. He was glad 
when she began to speak of other subjects, and 
less moving ones, although these also were 
interwoven with the history of the Pennyroyal 
Region. 

She was not a native of Oldfield. Her birth- 
place lay farther up in that country on the 
“ Pigeon Roost Fork of the Muddy, which is a 
branch of Green River,” on the very spot thus 
described by Washington Irving’s Kentucky 
classic. But Irving had only heard of “ Blue 
Bead Miller,” the famous hunter and Indian 
fighter, whom he has immortalized in that 
charming tale under his real name; and old 
132 


A Romantic Region 


lady Gordon had known him in her childhood 
and early youth. Many a time she had seen 
him in her father’s house, where he would often 
come, bringing his rifle, “ Betsy,” for her mother 
to “unwitch.” And this, her mother — who 
was young and city-bred, and full of wondering 
interest in all these strange ways of the wilder- 
ness — would always do with, girlish delight, 
gravely running her slim white fingers up and 
down the grimy barrel, as one who works a 
beneficent charm, while the grim old woods- 
man looked on with unquestioning faith. 

Near this old home on the Pigeon Roost 
Fork was the Roost itself, that marvellous 
mecca of the wild pigeons, where countless 
billions of gray wings darkened the great woods 
on the sunniest midday; and where unnum- 
bered trillions of the weightless, feathered little 
bodies crushed the great limbs of the mightiest 
giants of the forest. And this wondrous sight, 
too, old lady Gordon had seen many times, long 
before Audubon saw it to describe it for the 
wonderment of the whole world. 

She had not much to tell of the bridegroom 
with whom she came as a young bride to live in 
Oldfield ; she spoke mainly of journeying on 
horseback over the Wilderness Road, and of 
passing the place called “ Harpe’s Head,” which 
had then been very recently named for a most 
hideous tragedy. It was a story full of grewsome 
romance, this tale of the unheralded coming of 
two monsters among a simple, honest, scattered, 
yet neighborly, woods-people. The two were 
133 


Oldfield 


brothers, or claimed to be, but there was no 
outward likeness between them. One was small, 
and not in any way calculated to attract atten- 
tion ; while the other was far above the ordinary 
stature of men, and so ferocious of aspect that 
the very sight of him chilled the beholder 
with fear. Neither of the men ever wore any 
head covering, and both had wild, manelike, red 
hair, and complexions of “ a livid redness ” — ■ 
whatever that may have been — such as left a 
lasting impression of horror upon all who 
encountered them. They were soon known 
throughout the length of Wilderness Road as 
Big Harpe and Little Harpe. They lived close 
to the road, and almost immediately after their 
coming travellers began to disappear, never to 
be heard of again, or to be found long after- 
ward to have been murdered. A very pall of 
terror spread gradually over the whole Penny- 
royal Region; arson, robbery, and atrocities 
unspeakable followed murder after murder, 
and yet the few, far-apart people of the terror- 
stricken country could only tremble in help- 
less fear, till the murder of a woman led to 
the tracing of the long, wide, deep track of 
blood and crime to the door of the Harpes. 

“When they murdered a woman, the whole 
country rose up as one man. And it was just the 
same then that it is now when the same thing 
happens,” old lady Gordon said grimly. “ The 
best men in the Pennyroyal Region — as good 
and as God-fearing men as could be found in 
the world — hunted the Harpes like wild beasts. 
134 


A Romantic Region 

They beat the whole wilderness for the monsters, 
until they found them at last. Little Harpe 
managed to escape; it was not known how, 
and he was never seen or heard of again. But 
it Vv'as Big Harpe who had been the leader; he 
was the one that the men wanted most, and 
they now had him fast like a wild animal in a 
trap. Yet not one of his captors touched him; 
not one of them spoke to him ; they all merely 
sat still with their eyes on him, and waited for 
the woman’s husband to come.” 

“History repeats itself — especially in Ken- 
tucky,” Lynn said. 

Old lady Gordon smiled her most sardonic 
smile. “ The skull of Big Harpe’s head stayed 
on the end of a pole by the side of the Wilder- 
ness Road through a good many years. The 
place where it was put up is still called ‘ Harpe’s 
Head ’ — I presume it always will be.” 

All this was before old lady Gordon came as 
a young bride to live in Oldfield; but another 
band of robbers and assassins still terrorized 
that part of the Pennyroyal Region. The 
cavern in which the band made its den was 
on the other side of the Ohio River, but it was 
Kentucky that suffered most from its ravages. 
Many a richly laden flatboat was never heard 
of after it was known to have stopped at 
the entrance to Cave-in-Rock, as the place was 
called in the beginning of the last century, 
and as it is called at the present time. Many 
a gold-laden boatman, who had unknowingly 
passed down the river without stopping at 
I3S 


Oldfield 


the Cave-in-Rock, was beguiled into entering 
it on his way homeward — only to vanish for- 
ever off the face of the earth. The cavern 
would seem to have offered powerful tempta- 
tions to the unwary traveller. The cave itself 
was then as it is now a most curious and interest- 
ing survival of prehistoric times. It is a single 
chamber in the solid rock, opening at the river’s 
brink, two hundred feet long and eighty feet 
wide, its sides rising by regular stages after the 
manner of the seats in an amphitheatre. Its 
walls are covered with strange carvings cut deep 
in the stone ; there are representations of several 
animals unknown to science, and there are also 
inscribed characters which have led those learned 
in such matters to believe the cavern to have 
been the council house of some ancient race. 
But nothing was known of these things while 
Cave-in-Rock remained the hiding-place of rob- 
bers and assassins. The terrified country round 
about Oldfield knew the place only by vague 
hearsay as a drinking, gambling resort, wherein 
boatmen and all unwary travellers going up or 
down the Ohio were lured to destruction. No 
one who entered the awful mystery of the 
cavern ever came out to tell what he had seen 
or what had befallen him. It seemed — so old 
lady Gordon said — as if the hand of the law 
would never be able to lay hold upon actual 
proof of the crimes committed at Cave-in-Rock, 
but when the band was ultimately run to earth, 
an upper and secret chamber was found to be 
filled with the bones of human beings. 

136 


A Romantic Region 


The grandmother and the grandson sat silent 
for a space after she grew weary of story-telling. 
They were thinking in widely different ways of 
the wild, true tales of these terrific passion 
storms which had swept Kentucky throughout 
her existence. Was another fair portion of the 
good green earth ever so deep-dyed in the blood 
of both the innocent and the guilty ? 

“ And yet through all we have always been 
a most religious people,” the young man said 
musingly. 

“Very!” responded the old lady, who was 
growing hungry. “ None more so. We’ve 
about all the different religions that anybody 
else ever had, and we’ve started one or two 
of our own.” 


137 


X 


RELIGION IN OLDFIELD 

It is in the quiet village, remote, as this was, 
from the rushing change of city life, that the 
fervor of religion always appears warmest and 
seems to linger longest. 

In Oldfield everybody went to church twice 
a day on Sunday, in winter and in summer, and 
through the rain as well as through the sun- 
shine. That is to say, everybody except old 
lady Gordon and Miss Judy Bramwell, neither 
of whom ever went at all. 

There was nothing strange or inconsistent in 
old lady Gordon’s staying away. She was gen- 
erally held by everybody to be as an out-and- 
out heathen, whereas in reality she was merely 
a good deal of a pagan. And she was not in 
the habit of accounting to anybody for what 
she did or did not do, being equally indifferent 
to private and public opinion. 

But Miss Judy’s never going was a much 
harder thing to understand. For the little lady 
was not only the model for the whole commu- 
nity in week-day matters, but she was also 
known to be a most devout Episcopalian, so 
that, taken altogether, the fact that she never 
went to church remained always an impene- 
138 


Religion in Oldfield 

trable mystery, notwithstanding that the Old- 
field church-goers discussed it untiringly on 
almost every Sunday of their lives. Nor did 
Miss Judy, who was the soul of guileless frank- 
ness in everything else, ever offer any sort of 
an explanation for this unaccountable remiss- 
ness. She could not make any untrue excuses, 
and she would not give the real reason; her 
gentle heart being much too tender of her 
neighbors’ feelings to admit of her mentioning 
the truth, so long as she was able to hide what 
she was bound in conscience to feel. 

“ They are doing the best they can, you 
know, sister Sophia,” she would say, almost in 
a whisper, as the neighbors passed on Sundays; 
and she would steal on tiptoe to close the door, 
so that Merica might not overhear. “ They 
are not to blame, poor things ; it is their mis- 
fortune and not their fault, that they don’t 
know the difference between a meeting-house 
and the Church, and between a lecture and the 
Service.” 

“Just so, sister Judy,” Miss Sophia would 
respond, more befogged if possible over conse- 
cration and apostolic succession than she was 
over most things. When, however, after a time, 
she came gradually to comprehend that this 
stand, taken privately by Miss Judy, would 
spare herself the exertion of walking to the 
meeting-houses, both of which were at the 
other end of town, she became so decided in 
her support of Miss Judy’s position as to re- 
move the last shade of doubt from that mild 


139 


Oldfield 


little lady’s mind. Nothing of all this was ever 
suspected by any third person, but in the ab- 
sence of any actual knowledge, it ultimately 
came to be taken for granted that Miss Judy 
stayed at home on Sundays and read the prayer- 
book to her sister because Miss Sophia was 
not equal to the long walk to church and back, 
especially in bad weather. Miss J udy of course 
said not a word either to confirm or to contra- 
dict this impression, which strengthened as the 
years went by. But she always gave the neigh- 
bors so sweet a smile when they passed on the 
way to meeting that everything seemed to every- 
body just as it should be. 

One of the churches belonged to the Metho- 
dists and the other to the denomination known 
as The Disciples of Christ. The town was not 
large enough to supply two congregations or 
to support two preachers; and it was conse- 
quently necessary to hold services in each of 
the churches on alternate Sundays in order to 
insure a sizable congregation and a moderate 
support for the circuit rider and the Christian 
elder, when they came from their farms in 
another part of the county to preach on their 
appointed days ; thus giving freedom to all and 
favor to none. 

A single contribution box served for the two 
churches. This, which was in reality a con- 
tribution bag, was a sort of inverted liberty cap 
made of ecclesiastical black cloth, and lined 
with churchly purple satin. When not in 
use it usually stood on the end of its long staff 
140 


Religion in Oldfield 


in what was called the Amen corner of the 
Methodist church. The office of taking it 
down from its accustomed resting-place, and of 
carrying it over to the Christian church when 
needed there, had belonged from time immemo- 
rial to Uncle Watty. It is not certain to which 
of the two denominations Uncle Watty himself 
belonged. It was, indeed, never a very clearly 
established fact that he was a member of any 
denomination, but this uncertainty had nothing 
whatever to do with the life-long holding of his 
office. It seemed to everybody to be the right 
and proper thing for Uncle Watty to take up 
the collection, mainly for the reason that he 
always had done it, which is accepted as a good 
and sufficient reason for many rather singular 
things in that region. Miss Judy, who knew 
about it, as she knew about everything, al-' 
though she never saw him do it, — since she 
never went to meeting, — always considered it 
a particularly kind and delicate arrangement, 
devised by some thoughtful, feeling person 
expressly to save Uncle Watty the embarrass- 
ment of having nothing to put in the bag him- 
self. But Uncle Watty apparently took another 
view of it; and, like a good many people who 
do little themselves and exact much from others, 
he was extremely rigorous and almost relentless 
in his handing of the contribution bag. Its 
tough, hickory handle was equal to the full 
length of the benches, and no man, woman, or 
child might hope to evade its deliberate pres- 
entation under the very nose, and its being 
141 


Oldfield 


steadily held there, too, until Uncle Watty 
thought everybody’s duty was fully done. 

When there was a fifth Sunday in the month, 
both of the regular preachers came to the vil- 
lage, inviting any other preacher who chanced 
to be in the vicinity to join in the debate which 
then took the place of the sermon, and which 
was held in the court-house, on neutral ground, 
as it were. Sometimes the Cumberland Presby- 
terians and the Hard-shell Baptists took part, 
and now and then a Foot- Washing Baptist 
came along, so that these fifth Sundays were 
usually memorable occasions in Oldfield. Oc- 
casionally, to be sure, there was some slight 
friction, as was, perhaps, unavoidable under the 
circumstances ; but, on the whole, this rotation 
in creeds and dogmas gave remarkable general 
satisfaction. The exceptions were very few 
and purely personal in character, the gravest 
and most important growing out of an unfor- 
tunate dispute between Miss Pettus and the 
Christian elder over the ownership of a run- 
away pig. The controversy ended in the 
reverend gentleman’s getting the pig. When, 
therefore, on the following Sunday — through 
some singular mischance — he chose as a text : 
“ Children, have ye any meat } ” Miss Pettus 
not unnaturally felt that he was wantonly add- 
ing insult to injury, and, rising from her seat 
in the front of the church, the indignant lady 
— holding herself haughtily erect and her head 
very high — walked straight down the whole 
length of the middle aisle and out through the 


Religion in Oldfield 


women’s door. It was a year or more before 
she could be induced to go back again to hear 
the elder preach, notwithstanding that he did 
everything in his power (like the good man 
that he was) to convince her of his innocence 
of any thought of offence. But she tried to 
forgive him — which is all that the best of us 
can do — and she ultimately succeeded, in so 
far that she returned to the meeting-house on 
his day. She could not help, however, saying 
at the time, when coming out, how much she 
disliked levity in the pulpit, be it Christian or 
Methodist; yet she admitted afterward, when 
cooler, that he might have meant no irrever- 
ence, though there was no gainsaying his levity, 
when he announced at the close of the ser- 
mon that he would preach again on the sec- 
ond Sunday, “ the Lord willing ; ” but that 
he would preach again on the fourth Sunday 
“ whether or no.” There are always plenty of 
overcritical people besides Miss Pettus to be 
found everywhere. Some of those living in 
Oldfield complained that the circuit rider 
pounded so much dust out of the pulpit cush- 
ion that they took cold from continual sneezing 
every time he preached. Others were inclined 
to criticise the too vigorous elocution of the 
elder when he warmed to the warning of his 
flock against the shifting sands of dangerous 
doctrines, bidding them build their house of 
faith upon a rock, so that it might fall n-o-t 
when the winds b-l-e-w. 

Sidney, who called herself a Whiskey Baptist, 
143 


Oldfield 


and who consequently regarded herself and was 
regarded by others as something of a free lance 

— in theology as in most other things, — used 
to express her opinions of the shortcomings of 
both the Methodists and the Christians with 
entire frankness, but always more in jest than in 
earnest. Indeed, all these trivial faultfindings 
were no more than the passing expression of 
sectarian jealousy, and harmless as heat light- 
ning, so that, on the whole, religion flourished 
in Oldfield. 

It was a pleasant, peaceful sight to see the 
people coming out of their green-bowered houses 
on that radiant May morning. The old locust 
trees were at the sweetest and whitest of their 
flowering; the light, fine foliage seemed to 
float on the south breeze, and the long clusters 
of snowy flowers swung gently to and fro over 
the heads of the church-goers, like silvered 
censers filling the air with richest incense. And 
there at the base of every fragile spray — emblem 
of life’s mortality — lay the bud of the next year’s 
leaf — symbol of life’s immortality. But the 
simple people, walking beneath, went on their 
way heeding only the beauty, and the sweetness, 
and the warmth of the sunshine. They greeted 
one another after the friendly custom of the 
country, which gave a greeting even to strangers, 

— and these church-goers were all old friends. 
Only the young man leaving old lady Gordon’s 
gate might be accounted a stranger. Yet his 
ancestors also slept on the highest, greenest 
hillside, under the long grass over which the 

144 


Religion in Oldfield 

soft wind was running with swift, invisible feet. 
There were no strangers even there, where all 
the tombstones bore familiar names ; the new 
ones freshly inscribed, gleaming white and 
erect against the green ; the older ones showing 
gray as they leant ; the oldest, lying brown and 
prone, and crumbling slowly back to earth. 

The cracked bell of the wooden church rang 
with the homesick sound, full of a homely pathos 
that richer-toned bells never give tongue to. In 
response to its pathetic call the people went on 
toward the meeting-house in little groups, chat- 
ting with one another. Anne Watson was 
among the first now as always, when the preach- 
ing was to be in her own church. Her faith 
enjoined the weekly “breaking of bread,” and 
it had ever been a sore trouble to her that the 
opportunity was not given oftener than twice 
a month in her own church. In her grave un- 
easiness of conscience she had sought to do 
her duty ii> the other church whenever she 
could. But this had been before her husband 
was stricken ; since that time she had not felt 
compelled to leave him, except for the service 
in her own church. But the feeling that she 
must go there now became more imperative in 
its demands, if possible, than it ever had been. 
Therefore, when the bell began to ring that 
day, Anne put on her bonnet and came to take 
an hour’s anxious leave of her husband. 

She was a tall, delicately built woman, too thin 
and too unbending to be graceful, and yet too 
quiet and too dignified to be awkward. Her 
^ I4S 


Oldfield 


straight features were neither noticeably pretty 
nor decidedly plain, and her face was pale without 
being fair. Her hair, of an ashen shade, clung 
to her hollow temples ; there was not one loose 
lock, or the suggestion of a ripple under her 
quakerish bonnet. The straight skirt of her 
lead-colored dress hung flat, as the skirts of 
such women always hang, falling to her feet 
in unbroken lines. It was her eyes alone which 
made Anne Watson’s appearance utterly unlike 
that of any other woman of her not uncommon 
type. And even her eyes were neutral in color 
and slightly prominent, as the eyes of such 
women nearly always are, but so singularly 
and luminously clear that a white light seemed 
to be shining behind them. 

She fixed these wonderful eyes on her hus- 
band as she stood before him ready for church, 
and yet loath to leave him, and still lingering 
to see if she might not do something more for 
his comfort during her absence. She drew the 
stand nearer to his shaking uncertain hands, after 
turning the pillows at his helpless back and 
straightening the cushion under his powerless 
feet. When she could find nothing more to 
do, she bent down silently and kissed his 
scarred forehead. There was nothing for her 
to say, nothing for him, to hear. At the door 
she looked back, and again from the gate, be- 
fore passing out to hasten toward the church 
as though her haste in going might the sooner 
fetch her back. 

All along the big road the people were 
146 


Religion in Oldfield 

coming. The doctor and his wife were not 
far behind Anne, and following them came 
Miss Pettus and her brother, accompanied by 
Sam Mills. The old man, his father, was 
worse that morning, or thought he was, which 
amounted to the same thing, so that Kitty 
had been compelled to stay at home as usual ; 
but she leant over the front gate, looking 
after her husband, with her bare red arms rolled 
in her apron and her honest face beaming with 
happy smiles as she hailed the passers-by, until 
the old man’s harsh, querulous voice was heard 
calling her into the house. From the opposite 
direction, also, the pious people of Oldfield were 
approaching the meeting-house, the men to 
enter one door and the women another. Even 
the children were strictly divided, the boys 
sitting with their fathers and the girls with 
their mothers. Once when a man, who was a 
stranger and unacquainted with Oldfield cus- 
toms, wandered in and unknowingly took a 
seat on the women’s side, a scandalized shock 
passed over the entire congregation. It was a 
serious matter, to be gravely discussed for many 
a day thereafter. 

On the church steps stood Lynn Gordon, 
intent upon watching and waiting for the 
coming of the girl whom he had come hoping 
to see. So intent was he that he was not aware 
of the glances cast upon himself by those pass- 
ing into the building. Yet he was well worth 
looking at, for he was a handsome young fellow, 
and dressed, moreover, as no one had ever before 
147 


Oldfield 


been dressed in Oldfield. His pantaloons, made 
of dove-colored canton cloth, were tight beyond 
anything ever seen in that part of the country, 
and held to his high-heeled varnished boots by 
a strap under his arched instep. His long- 
waisted, short-skirted coat of dark blue was 
lined and trimmed with rich goffered silk. 
His waistcoat was of a buff color and en pique, 
for, strange — incredible, indeed — as it may 
seem, Paris at that time set the fashions for 
fine gentlemen as well as for fine ladies, and 
the London papers gravely recorded weekly 
what the Frenchmen were wearing. Lynn 
Gordon’s hat, too, was of the latest French 
mode, just brought over for the Boston dandies 
on the eve of his leaving Harvard. Its brim 
was very wide and slightly curled, and its crown 
was high and widened perceptibly toward the 
top. His tie, a large, loose bow of black bro- 
cade, gave the final touch of elegance. 

There was nothing modish in poor little, 
country-bred, Doris’s dress when this fine 
gentleman saw her coming behind all the rest, 
after he had almost given her up. The skirt 
of Miss Judy’s book-muslin was much too 
narrow for the requirements even of Oldfield 
fashions, but Doris did not know it, and the 
young man was not thinking of it as he saw 
her first, far up the big road, descending its 
gradual slope beneath the flowering locust 
trees. The gentle breeze caught the ivory 
softness of her skirt, pressing it into enchanting 
curves around her slender limbs; a long, thin 
148 


Religion in Oldfield 

white scarf streamed back from her shoulders, 
and the white ribbons of her straw hat floated 
out behind her golden head. The thought 
which arose in Lynn’s mind as he thus saw Doris 
approaching was not of any fleeting fashion, but 
of a living Winged Victory lovelier than any 
antique sculpture. 

He lingered at his post on the steps till she 
ascended them and went by him into the church, 
and he noted the little flurry of delicate color 
which followed her shy side glance. But she 
did not pause, entering the meeting-house at 
once, by way, of course, of the women’s door, 
and going straight up the aisle to a seat 
reserved for her between her mother and Uncle 
Watty. The young man had never seen either 
Sidney or her brother-in-law, but he knew 
who they were as soon as he caught sight 
of them. And the sight was something of a 
shock. And yet what did it matter, after 
all he asked himself. The girl’s beauty and 
refinement of appearance were only the more 
remarkable because she came of such humble, 
homely people. He could not take his eyes from 
the heavy braids of shining gold gleaming 
below the white straw hat; and although he 
was unable to see the beautiful face from the 
place in which he sat, he was nevertheless 
vividly conscious of its soft dark eyes and its 
exquisite rose-red mouth ; and he fancied that 
he could distinguish her voice in the old- 
fashioned hymn, given out two lines at a time 
by the preacher. 


149 


Oldfield 


He kept the back of the charming head in 
view all down the aisle, when the sermon was 
over and the congregation arose to leave the 
church. But Colonel Fielding was at the outer 
end of the bench on which the young man had 
been seated, and it required some minutes for the 
old gentleman’s friends to help him regain his 
feet. Poor, feeble old man ! And then every- 
body was talking to everybody else while passing 
down the aisle. It was the custom in Oldfield 
for neighbors thus to greet one another after 
the sermon, and Lynn consequently found him- 
self hemmed in and could move only with the 
crowd; so that notwithstanding his strenuous 
though quiet efforts to reach the door of the 
men’s side, before Doris could reach the en- 
trance on the women’s side, she had already 
passed out and was well on her way homeward 
when he reached the big road. 

He was keenly disappointed, and stood for a 
moment undecided what to do or which way 
to go, until the doctor and his wife spoke to 
him. They were almost the last of the home- 
going procession at that end of the village; 
and the young man joined them in the lingering 
hope that the girlish figure in white, fluttering 
ahead, might be overtaken, since he now saw 
that it was not, after all, so very far in advance. 
Mrs. Alexander undoubtedly would present 
him, so he thought ; she could hardly do any- 
thing else; and, so hoping, he walked on up 
the big road, listening as best he could to what 
she was saying. But the slender young shape 


Religion in Oldfield 

in white went rapidly on and did not linger, 
and never once looked back, Sidney turned 
at the gate and nodded to her neighbors; but 
Doris passed through it without pausing, and 
disappeared under the low arch of silver leaves. 

Again Lynn went back to his grandmother’s 
house, thinking of Doris, but again he refrained 
from speaking of her, although he hardly knew 
why, unless it was because he shrank from the 
harshness of his grandmother’s cynical com- 
ments. Old lady Gordon asked about many of 
the people whom he had seen at church, but it 
did not occur to her to mention the daughter of 
Sidney Wendall. Nevertheless, the girl clung 
to Lynn’s thoughts through all the warm idle 
afternoon hours of the perfect spring day. Talk- 
ing half-heartedly, absently, of other things, he 
still thought of her, even until the evening, 
coming little by little to think of her as the most 
beautiful girl whom he had ever seen. He knew, 
upon reflection, that meeting her was merely a 
question of a short time in a place so small as 
Oldfield ; and he was not quite sure that, after 
all, he really wished to make her acquaintance. 
It would be best, perhaps, considering the career 
which he had laid out for himself, that he should 
know as few young women as possible. More- 
over, it seemed most unlikely, from all that he 
had heard of Doris Wendall and of her family 
and training and environment, that she could 
possess any charm other than a beautiful face. 
Yet at the same time he ardently admitted that 
merely to look upon such rare beauty was a 


Oldfield 


delight to such a worshipper of beauty as he 
knew himself to be. 

He smiled at his own weakness and folly, 
when he found himself going toward the tall 
poplars at the close of the long day. The sup- 
ple tops of the great trees bent white against the 
darkening sky. But although the leaves no 
longer dazzled as when they turned their silver 
lining to the noonday sunlight, they were still 
too restless and too thick to be seen through, 
and, smiling again at his foolish craving for 
another glimpse of beauty, the young man went 
on, hoping for better luck as he came back. 
Going beyond the eastern hills which rimmed 
the village, he paused and looked down and far 
out over the wide lowlands; at the emerald seas 
of wheat flowing with waves of purple shadows; 
at the springing vivid lines of young corn, 
stretching to the dim distant horizon ; at the 
rich, dark green of the vast tobacco fields already 
beginning to be dotted by the small, thick-leaved 
plants ; at the red herds, and at the white flocks 
dimly visible through the fleecy mists trailing 
above the meadows. He stood still, leaning on a 
fence and listening to the gentle lowing of far-off 
cattle, and the homely barking of distant dogs, 
which were the most distinct sounds. Then, as 
he listened, lingering, the music of the woods 
and fields grew fainter — fainter, till it became 
hushed with the falling of the twilight. Only 
the whip-poor-will’s lonesome cry — the vesper 
bell of the birds — rang out at long intervals 
from the dark willows fringing a far-away stream. 

152 . 


Religion in Oldfield 

The dusk falls very slowly and very softly 
over the Pennyroyal Region, settling like the 
exquisite gray down from some wonderful brown 
wings. It was falling, but still lingering between 
daylight and darkness, when Lynn Gordon turned 
at last toward the village. He could not see 
the people sitting in Sunday quiet and peace 
on their vine-wreathed porches ; but he heard 
them talking in low tones of the humble little 
things that make the sweetness of home. A 
feeling of longing came over him such as he 
had never known before ; a yearning for the 
home which had never been his, for the loved 
ones whom he could not remember. The fire- 
side smell of smoking tobacco mingled with the 
scent of the homely flowers blooming in the 
yards and gardens. Great white moths flut- 
tered back and forth across the deserted high- 
way, seeking the sweetest of those shy blossoms 
which yield their beauty and fragrance only to 
the gloaming. 

As the young man approached the poplars, 
sombre now as cypress trees in the deepened 
twilight, a sudden breeze stirred the leaves 
and swayed the branches. But the fleeting 
glimpse of white at which he started forward so 
eagerly, proved to be nothing more than a bunch 
of pale roses drooping beside the window. 
There was not a glimmer of light behind the 
curtain, and as he strolled on along the big road 
the lights in all the houses went out one by one, 
as the simple people, drowsy from the day’s 
unaccustomed idleness, sought their early rest. 
153 


Oldfield 


Tom Watson’s lamp alone shone afar, throwing 
its beams a long way down the big road, and the 
sight of it suddenly touched the young man’s 
softened heart with keenest pity, reminding him, 
almost reproachfully, of the promise which he 
had quite forgotten. 

At his grandmother’s house all was dark and 
still ; the dogs leaping to meet him knew him 
well enough not to bark, and he sat down on 
the porch to smoke a cigar. He could always 
think more clearly when smoking, and he 
wished now to think as clearly as possible. 
For the past two days his thoughts had been 
wandering, as he rarely allowed them to wander, 
far away from his life plans. Firmly he now 
bent them back ; intently he surveyed every 
up-hill step in the direction of his high ambi- 
tion ; calmly he faced the full length and diffi- 
culty of the struggle between him and his goal, 
without thought of faltering or fear of failure. 
He said to himself, as the young who have 
never measured their strength against their 
weakness often say to themselves : — 

“ I will not do any of those things which I 
firmly set on that side; I will do all these 
things which I calmly range on this side : the 
shaping of a man’s life lies in his own hand ; it 
has but to be powerful enough to grasp and 
firm enough to hold.” 

It is easy to be calm and common to be sure 
on starting in life’s race. And, indeed, this 
young fellow was better trained and equipped 
for the running of it than most young men are. 

154 


Religion in Oldfield 

Feeling this intelligently, but without undue 
•conceit, he now threw back his broad shoulders 
and lifted his proud head. The arrogance of 
youth takes no heed of the slight chances that 
defeat great plans, no heed even of the divinity 
that shapes mortal hewing. He looked absently 
at the red rim of the climbing moon, and scarcely 
noting that, as its disk grew larger and its 
beams grew brighter, a mocking-bird, at home 
with his beloved in one of the giant elms, began 
a murmuring melody, as though he were woo- 
ing his mate in dreams. Yet, as the paling, 
brightening moon arose higher and higher, till 
it hung a great shield of burnished silver on 
night’s starry wall, the mocking-bird’s song 
grew clearer and sweeter, till, soaring to the 
moonlit heavens, it arose to a very pean of 
love triumphant. 


XI 


BODY OR SOUL 

Lynn set out on his errand of mercy very early 
the next morning. The eternal freshness of 
dawn seemed still to be lingering amid the 
cool shadows of the wooded hillsides. The 
woods and fields alike were still bubbling with 
matin song. Heavy drops of dew still hung 
on the blue-eyed grass, sparkling in the sun- 
light like happy tears. 

The doctor, however, was ready and waiting. 
The day’s work began with the sunrise in Old- 
field, and no one in all the region round had 
more to do between the rising and the setting 
of the sun, or indeed between its setting and 
rising again, than John Alexander always had. 
Ah, those village doctors of the old time ! It 
is known in a way to all who think, how large 
a part they must have had in the making of 
these far-off corners of our great country, and 
yet the greater part can never be known. A 
doctor’s memory is the greatest catholic con- 
fessional of humanity — and forever sacred. It 
is only the trivial, the whimsical outer edges of 
the deep experiences of these old-time country 
doctors that history may ever touch. Being 
human, they growled ^loud sometimes over 
156 





rc 


















Body or Soul 

these trifles, as the doctor was growling when 
Lynn Gordon found him on that May morning. 

A patient, a sufferer from chills and fever, 
which were still the scourge of the Ohio low- 
lands, had come to him on the day before for 
quinine. The doctor had given it to him in 
solution, the only form in which it was then 
known to countiy practitioners. Quinine was 
a costly medicine in those days, under the heavy 
tax which was removed long afterwards through 
the most earnest and even impassioned efforts 
of a Kentucky statesman, who, in a memorable 
speech, eloquently implored Congress to keep, if 
it would, its tax on silks and laces and precious 
stones but — for humanity’s sake — to allow his 
constituency to have all the free quinine that 
they wanted. 

“ I gave this chap a big bottle of quinine,” 
the doctor said. “ He paid a stiff price for it, 
too, and I saw him put it in his saddle-bags 
with great care. Nevertheless, he managed 
somehow to crack the bottle, and, when only a 
part of the way home he found that it was leak- 
ing. He couldn’t think of losing the quinine, 
— it had cost too much, — and he saved it by 
drinking that whole bottleful at a gulp. Well, 
he certainly had the benefit of it, none of it was 
wasted ; but I feel a- little tired from being up 
most of the night and having had pretty brisk 
work to keep him alive. What fools these mor- 
tals be ; ” the doctor yawned, as he struck his 
pipe musingly on the porch railing, thus ranging 
his thoughts while clearing his pipe of ashes. 

157 


Oldfield 


“ And here’s this other hard job, that’s quite as 
unnecessary, on hand for to-day, and no more 
to be shirked or put off than the other was. 
Well, come along,” he said, reluctantly laying 
down his pipe, the sole luxury that he allowed 
himself. “We may as well be going; ‘’twere 
well it were done quickly,’ ” he quoted again, 
for this rugged country doctor knew his Shake- 
speare as a man may know a book when he reads 
only one. 

They went down the porch steps, talking of 
indifferent matters, pausing a moment at the 
gate, long enough for Lynn to speak a few 
words in return for the greeting which the 
doctor’s wife gave him from the window. 
The Watson house was near by, — only a few 
paces down the big road, — and they were almost 
immediately standing before its open door. 
There the doctor halted with the look of one 
who musters his forces after having set his 
thoughts in order. He drew himself up and 
threw back his shoulders as if settling to a 
firm purpose with . new determination, and 
he finally buttoned his coat. That poor old 
shabby coat ! Ah ! that dear old coat ! So 
eloquent in its faced shabbiness of the many 
fierce storms and the many merciless suns 
which had beaten upon his tireless ministra- 
tions to suffering humanity ! And the button- 
ing of the doctor’s old coat was always as the 
girding of a warrior’s armor for battle. 

The young man standing beside him on the 
steps gave him a careless side glance. He did 
158 


Body or Soul 

not understand the meaning of what he saw, 
and he merely smiled at its apparent absurdity. 
A moment later he followed the doctor into the 
house, all unafraid, as youth often enters upon 
the most appalling of the mysteries of living. 

It was Anne who met them and gave them 
an impassive good-morning, and silently led 
them into the room in which her husband was 
sitting. The sick man, propped up in his usual 
seat by the window, looked round when they 
came in, and murmured some indistinct greet- 
ing. But his miserable, restless eyes went back 
almost at once to their ceaseless quest of the 
deserted big road, stretching dully toward the 
dim, distant horizon. 

“ How are you to-day, Tom ? ” asked the doc- 
tor, perfunctorily, and then he continued with- 
out waiting for a reply to his inquiry, “We are 
not going to let you mope like this, old boy. 
I’ve been trying to think of something to help 
you — to fill the time. It’s after a man gets 
out of bed that the worst tug comes — while he 
is still tied to the house and yet not actually ill. 
We mustn’t let him mope, must we, Anne.?” 
he said. 

He turned to the silent, motionless woman 
who sat by without so much as the natural 
feminine rustle of garments. 

Anne looked at him through the white light 
of her clear eyes, but she did not speak. She 
had been well called a “ still-tongued woman.” 

The doctor, glancing away, went on un- 
easily, yet determinedly: — 

159 


Oldfield 


“ But I am not sure what Tom would like. 
I don’t think he cares for backgammon or 
checkers or dominoes or any of those milk- 
and-water games. You don’t know anything 
about chess, do you, Tom ? ” he asked. 

The stricken man made no reply ; he could 
utter but few words and those only with in- 
distinctness and difficulty. He did not even 
turn his head ; the turning of it ever so slowly 
was hard and caused him great pain. 

“ I scarcely think chess would be the thing 
anyway — it’s too heavy and requires too much 
thinking to be good for an invalid. You must 
have something light and amusing. That’s the 
sort of game we must give you to keep you from 
moping.” 

The doctor spoke to the husband, but his 
eyes were on the wife and regarding her anx- 
iously, though his lips were smiling. 

There was no responsive smile on Anne’s 
pale face. It was quite still and grave as it 
always was, but a thin cloud of alarm seemed 
suddenly rising in her clear gaze, as white smoke 
floats over the crystalline sky of a winter’s day. 
But yet she said not a word. 

The doctor also fell unexpectedly silent, with 
his eyes fixed sternly on the back of the sick 
man’s chair and a frown gathering between his 
shaggy, grizzled brows, as it always gathered 
when he was sorely perplexed. He was only 
an old-fashioned country doctor — merely a 
good man first and scientist afterwards. So 
that he now sat speechless, casting about in 
i6o 


Body or Soul 

his troubled thoughts for the gentlest words 
wherewith he must wound the quiet, pale-faced 
woman, whose very lack of comprehension 
appealed to his great heart as all helplessness 
did. He saw, as only doctors can see, how 
frail was the body holding this strenuous spirit. 
As he thus sat silent, gathering courage, the 
utter stillness of the room grew tense. The 
young man, sitting on the other side of the 
chamber, silent and ill at ease, moved uneasily, 
keeping his eyes on the floor. The soft, monot- 
onous murmur of the bees in the honeysuckle 
over the window sounded unnaturally loud and 
shrill. 

At last the doctor spoke distinctly and firmly, 
but without looking at Anne : — 

“ There is only one thing to do. We must 
find a partner for Tom — Mr. Gordon here has 
kindly offered — and we must give him a real 
good, lively game of cards.” 

It was out now, and he was glad and sorry at 
the same time. 

Anne gave a startled cry, inarticulate, like 
the terror of a dumb creature. She recoiled 
as if a black pit had opened at her feet. 

“ Tom’s need is very great. He is very, very 
weak,” the doctor urged, in the space of the 
recoil. 

Anne instantly flew to her husband as the 
mother bird flies to the fallen fledgling, and 
laid her little trembling hands on his broken 
shoulders, as the mother bird spreads her weak 
wings between helplessness and danger. 

M i6i 


Oldfield 


“ I will take care of him,” she said, speaking 
out of that tender, protecting maternal instinct 
which is the divine part of every good woman’s 
love for her husband. 

“ I can see no other way,” the doctor urged 
gently, not knowing what else to say. 

“ There must be some other way ! Surely 
our Father never forces us to commit sin. 
Surely in His mercy He gives us a choice ; ” 
Anne panted, like a frightened wild creature at 
bay. 

Yet she faced the two men steadily over her 
husband’s powerless head, her clear eyes clouded 
darkly now, and her set face as white and as 
inscrutable as the cold mask of death. 

“ I can only say again what I have said 
before,” the doctor repeated weakly, glancing at 
Anne and quickly looking away. 

“ The way will mercifully be opened unto 
me. A light will be shown as a lamp to my 
feet.” 

Anne’s murmured words were barely to be 
heard, yet they bore, nevertheless, to the three 
men who listened, the full strength of her faith, 
firm as the Rock of Ages. 

The doctor arose hurriedly and went out 
into the passage, and stood for a while in the 
doorway, looking at the quiet big road, at the 
peace of the green earth, and at the sunlight 
flooding the blue heavens. When he turned 
back his sunken eyes were wet and he could 
not meet Anne’s gaze nor the sick man’s, which 
was also turned upon him with all its dumb, 

162 


Body or Soul 

restless, desperate misery — with all its terrible 
voiceless clamor for relief. 

“ I don’t know what to do,” he said, trying to 
speak lightly, but sighing in spite of himself 
and spreading out his hands. “ I suppose we’ll 
have to give it up, Tom, old fellow. Well, 
maybe Anne knows best after all. These wives 
of ours usually do know better what is good 
for us than we know ourselves. A good wife 
is always more to be depended upon than medi- 
cine when a man’s pulling through a tedious 
convalescence. You don’t need any more medi- 
cine. I am coming, though, every day, if I can 
— just as a neighbor, to see how you are get- 
ting along.” 

He turned away from the sick man. He 
could not look at him without being compelled 
to renew the struggle with Anne ; that infinitely 
cruel, that ineffably piteous struggle which 
wrung his own heart, and which would be use- 
less in the end. He took one of Anne’s cold 
little hands in his warm large clasp, thinking 
how small and weak it was to hold so firmly 
to its mistaken ideals, how much more firm 
than his own, which was not strong enough to 
hold to an unmistakable duty. And then he 
and Lynn Gordon went away, as best they 
could, go, both feeling as the conscientious and 
the impressionable must always feel after hav- 
ing, however unwillingly, stirred the depths of 
the deep, still pool of another’s life. 

Out of the house, and out of hearing, the 
doctor became, however, once more himself 
163 


Oldfield 


in a measure. He smote his powerful thigh 
with his strong hand, and upbraided himself 
aloud for most disgraceful moral cowardice. 
He convicted himself, almost in a shout, of hav- 
ing deserted Tom Watson — poor devil — and 
of having virtually run away, like the veriest 
coward, simply because he knew that, in a mo- 
ment more, he would have been crying like any 
child. And all on account of the silly fanaticism 
of a woman with a mind no wider than a cam- 
bric needle — sheer foolishness, morbid senti- 
mentality — and much more of the same tenor, 
while Lynn Gordon laughed at him a little 
nervously. 

“ But, foolish or wise, she believes what she 
does believe. By the eternal. I’d like to hear 
any man doubt it ! Why, young sir, that little 
slim, unbending splinter of a woman is the 
stuff that they threw to the beasts in old 
Rome ! ” 

There was no consciousness of heroism in 
Anne’s own sadly humble thoughts. When 
the doctor and the young man were gone, she 
bent down silently and kissed her husband with 
tender timidity, as if begging his forgiveness for 
what she could not help. Kneeling by his side, 
as she often knelt in her unwearying service, 
she strove to look into his averted face, and to 
meet and to hold his miserable eyes with her 
own clear gaze, from which the clouds were fast 
drifting away. The white light behind her 
strange eyes had sunk low under the shock, 
164 


Body or Soul 

and had died out in the stress of terror; but 
it was gradually beginning to rise and shine 
again through the crystal windows of her soul. 
Her husband did not look at her; he seemed 
not to hear what she said ; he was staring 
after the two men who were walking away 
down the big road, his look straining to follow 
them as a chained animal strains its fetters 
toward companionship. Anne saw nothing of 
this ; she was not a bright woman, and entirely 
without imagination. She saw only that he 
did not notice her, that she was far from his 
thoughts. And she was used to being over- 
looked by her hu^and, and accustomed to 
being forgotten by him. She arose and went 
quietly across the room, and brought a foot- 
stool, and sat down upon it by his side, laying 
her head on the arm of his chair, with her 
hands folded on her lap. 

She was not weeping, — she had never been 
a crying woman, — and in truth she was not 
more unhappy at this moment than she had 
been for years.- She was, indeed, even less un- 
happy, now that the shock was well over and 
the danger safely passed. A feeling of peace 
was in truth already hovering in her breast, 
though very timidly, as a frightened dove 
comes slowly back to its nest. This spirit of 
peace had begun to brood in Anne’s lonely 
heart soon after her husband’s hurt, although 
Anne herself was scarcely aware of the fact. 
Through the endless months of his greatest 
suffering she had been not only upheld, but 
1 6s 


Oldfield 


comforted, by the growing belief — changing 
little by little to exaltation — that the torture was 
but a fiery furnace intended.for the purification 
of her husband’s soul and her own — for she, 
too, suffered with every pang which wrenched 
his shattered body. It was a terrible faith, and 
yet it was the faith of the martyrs ; and Anne 
held not back from sealing it, as they sealed 
it, with life itself, — ay ! even unto the dear 
life of her husband, which was infinitely dearer 
to her than her own. For she loved him as 
none save a nature such as hers can love; with 
an intense, narrow, almost fierce and wholly 
terrible concentration. It was a love which 
had almost entirely excluded every one else ; 
not only every other man, but her father and 
mother and sisters and brothers, all had been 
shut out from her inmost heart, from her earli- 
est youth till this latest moment when she sat 
unnoticed by her husband’s side. He had 
never loved her with the best love that he 
was capable of giving. Love is perhaps never 
quite equal, certainly it never seems equal, in 
any marriage. The one always loves more, 
or less, than the other. And then, in circum- 
scribed lives, such as Anne’s and Tom’s were, 
both men and women choose the one whom 
they prefer from among the few whom they 
chance to know; they cannot choose from a 
large number which might possibly have in- 
duced a different selection. But the width of 
the world would not have altered Anne’s choice. 
And a love like hers changes no more with 
1 66 


Body or Soul 

time than it is influenced by environment ; it is 
too little of the flesh, and too much of the spirit 
to age, or to wither, or to grow cold. Even 
her husband’s neglect had made no difference 
through all the unhappy years of her married 
life ; even his disregard of religion did not 
lessen or alter her love, although it put her and 
her husband farther apart than they might other- 
wise have been, and came nearer than all else 
to breaking her heart. She could bear the loss 
of happiness in her daily life ; she could bear to 
be deprived of her husband’s society day after 
day and night after night, by interests and asso- 
ciations in which she had no part, — living was 
but waiting, anyway, to Anne. But sfie could 
not bear the thought of the Long Time with- 
out the beloved. To Anne, as much as to any 
mediaeval saint in any rock-ribbed cell, the 
longest, happiest earthly life measured nothing 
against a glorious eternity. Her husband was 
handsome, spirited, high-hearted, masterful, com- 
pelling, and kind, too, in his careless way; another 
woman might have been happy and proud to be 
his wife ; but Anne’s heart had ached from first 
to last for the one thing of which she never 
spoke, and for which she was always praying. 

Then came the accident, striking down the 
strong man at the height of his powers, as the 
lightning blasts the mighty oak in full leaf. 
Stunned at first, Anne, rallying, felt the blow 
as a manifestation of offended Power. A mind 
like hers works in strangely tortuous ways. 
But after a while she began to see in this 
167 


Oldfield 


awful affliction a means of grace thus given 
when all else had failed ; and it was then that 
the wan ghost of happiness began to visit 
Anne’s desolate breast. The world had been 
violently wrenched away from her husband’s 
grasp, which otherwise would, most likely, never 
have loosed ; it might perhaps now come to 
pass — through mercy cloaked in cruelty — 
that his thoughts would turn heavenward. So 
poor Anne thought, and thus it was that when, 
to all outward seeming, the husband’s hopeless 
convalescence was the last settling down of 
darkest despair, in reality a shining rainbow 
of hope first began to span the wife’s long- 
clouded* content. 

Was it then possible for Anne to listen for 
a moment to this incredible, monstrous, destroy- 
ing thing which the doctor had urged ? Could 
she by listening endanger this late-coming 
chance for the salvation of her husband’s soul 
in consenting to the sinful relief of his bodily 
need .i* The thought of yielding never crossed 
her mind, nor the shade of a shadow of doubt 
that she was right. It was to her simply a 
question of her conscience standing firm against 
her love. Anne — fortunate in this, however un- 
fortunate in all other respects — always saw the 
way before her, open, and straight, and very, very 
narrow. To her clear sight a sharp, distinct line 
ever divided right from wrong; on this side every- 
thing was snow-white, on that side everything 
was jet-black. There were no myriad middle 
shades of gray to bewilder Anne’s crystal gaze. 

i68 


Body or Soul 

Living were less hard for some of us — some, 
too, as conscientious as Anne — if all could see, 
or even think they see, as clearly through the 
whitish, grayish, blackish mists, so that they 
also might be able unerringly to tell where the 
pure white ends and the real black begins. 


169 


XII 


MISS Judy’s little ways 

When the doctor’s deep voice roared out 
what he thought of any man who failed in his 
duty for fear of offending anybody’s prejudices, 
Miss Judy, who was busy among the shrubbery 
in her yard, overheard him, and was quite fright- 
ened by the severity of his tone, though she did 
not catch the words. She knew him to be the 
mildest of absent-minded men, and she accord- 
ingly fluttered around the house, wondering what 
could be the matter. 

She had been engaged in tying up a rose 
bush which grew at the side of the door, and 
which was too heavy laden with its sweet bur- 
den of blush roses. She was holding a big 
bunch in her hand as she hurried toward the 
gate, blushing when she saw the gentlemen, till 
her delicate face was as pink as the freshest 
among her roses. The doctor brightened and 
smiled, as everybody brightened and smiled at 
the sight of Miss Judy. He opened the gate 
before she reached it, knowing that she would 
never tempt ill luck by shaking hands over it. 
When they had shaken hands, he presented 
Lynn Gordon, whom she had not met, and who 
stood a little apart, thinking what a pretty old 
iady she was. 

170 


Miss Judy’s Little Ways 

‘Miss Judy,” said the doctor, before she had 
time to ask what had happened, “ what do you 
think of playing poker ? ” 

“Mercy — me!” exclaimed Miss Judy, open- 
ing her blue eyes very wide in blank amaze- 
ment. And then, catching her breath, she 
became mildly scandalized. 

“ Well — really, doctor ! ” she began, blushing 
more vividly, making her little mouth smaller 
than usual, “ primping ” it, as she would have 
said, and bridling with the daintiest little air of 
prudery, which she never would have dreamt 
of putting on for the doctor alone, but which 
seemed to her to be the proper manner before 
a strange young gentleman — and one from 
Boston too. “ I have never been required to 
think anything of any gambling game ! Such 
matters were left entirely to gentlemen; they 
were not mentioned before ladies in my day.” 

“ Bless your little heart I ” exclaimed the doc- 
tor. “ If I’ve said a word that you don’t like. 
I’m ready to go right down on my knees in the 
dust — here and now — in the middle of the 
big road.” 

Miss J udy smiled, shaking her little head till 
the thin curls behind her pretty ears were more 
like silver mist than ever. In gentle confusion 
she began dividing the bunch of blush roses 
into halves, giving one to the doctor and the 
other to Lynn. She had known his father, she 
said shyly to the young man, and his mother 
also, although not so well, since the latter had 
not been brought up in Oldfield as his father was. 

171 


Oldfield 


“ But, Miss Judy, I want to talk to you 
seriously about card-playing,” the doctor per- 
sisted. “You see you have got us all into the 
selfish habit of bringing every one of our burdens 
to lay them on your little shoulders. Unselfish- 
ness like yours does harm ; it breeds selfishness 
in others.” 

Miss Judy protested that she had not the 
least idea of what he was talking about; but 
she saw that he was in earnest, and she straight- 
way forgot all her quaint airs, and listened with 
deepest interest and tenderest sympathy to his 
story of his perplexity over the hopeless case 
of Tom Watson, and over the unbending atti- 
tude of Anne. 

“ The passion for gaming is just as strong in 
that poor fellow as it ever was. I had sus- 
pected it before, but I wasn’t sure until to-day,” 
the doctor went on, looking across the way at 
the sick man’s window. “ I disapprove of gam- 
bling as much as any one, but I can’t for the 
life of me see any harm that could possibly 
come now to that poor unfortunate, from any 
sort of a game — if anybody can possibly stand 
it to play with him.” 

Miss Judy looked puzzled and a little alarmed. 
“Were you — do you wish me to play with 
him ? ” she faltered, rather shocked, yet wonder- 
ing if she could learn, and quite ready to try. 

The doctor was too deeply absorbed — too 
seriously troubled — to smile as he usually did 
at Miss Judy’s sweet absurdities, appreciating 
them almost as much as he valued her heart 


172 


Miss Judy’s Little Ways 

of gold. In truth he hardly heard what she 
said. 

“ Maybe you can make Anne see how differ- 
ent things are now,” he went on musingly, and 
somewhat hesitatingly, as though the possibility 
had suddenly occurred to him. “ Women under- 
stand one another,” he added, uttering a fallacy 
accepted by many a sensible man and rejected 
by every sensible woman. 

The fair old face on the other side of the 
gate grew grave in its perplexity. Quick to 
decide for herself in any matter of principle. 
Miss Judy was slow to decide for any one else. 
She did not consider herself wise, and it was 
hard, she thought, for the wisest to put herself 
in another’s place, and no one — so she believed 
— could judge justly without so doing. She 
knew Anne’s prejudice, that had been well 
known always to all the Oldfield people ; but 
she had never ventured to form an opinion as to 
whether Anne had ever been justified in taking 
such a stand, which appeared strange to Miss 
Judy even in the beginning, and stranger now 
in Tom’s extremity. She had merely wondered, 
as everybody had ; but it was always harder for 
Miss Judy than for almost any one else to 
understand how there ever could be any actual 
conflict between love and faith, which were 
always and inseparably one and the same to 
her. 

“ I am not sure,” she faltered, with a flutter 
of timidity, and blushing again. “ Anne is such 
a good woman — so much better and wiser 

173 


Oldfield 


than I am — and so very reserved. I should 
hardly dare approach her, even if I were sure of 
being in the right. And I am far from being sure. 
Suppose we consult sister Sophia.?” she said 
suddenly and with her pretty face lighting at the 
happy thought. “You know, doctor, that her 
judgment is much sounder, much more practi- 
cal, than mine. She sometimes has very valuable 
ideas — when I don’t at all know what to do.” 

Miss Judy turned to the young man with a 
soft little air and a touch of gentle pride that 
charmed him : “ I am speaking, sir, of my 
sister. Miss Sophia Bramwell.” 

Thus delicately proclaiming Miss Sophia to 
be a personage whom it was an honor as well 
as an advantage to know. Miss Judy went in- 
doors to ask, with the usual elaborate, punctil- 
ious ceremony, if she would be so kind as to 
take the trouble to come out to the front gate, 
where the doctor was waiting to consult her in 
an important matter ; and where it would give 
herself the greatest pleasure to present old lady 
Gordon’s grandson — who was waiting with 
the doctor, — provided, of course, that the in- 
troduction would be entirely agreeable to Miss 
Sophia. There were excellent reasons why 
Miss Judy thus begged Miss Sophia to come 
out instead of inviting the gentlemen to come 
in, but neither of the sisters then or ever spoke 
of these, nor of any other merely sordid things. 
It took Miss Judy some time, however, to make 
the request of Miss Sophia as politely as she 
fondly considered her due ; and although it did 
174 


Miss Judy’s Little Ways 

not take Miss Sophia long to say “ Just so, sister 
Judy,” with all the accustomed promptness and 
decision, several minutes necessarily elapsed be- 
fore she was really ready to appear. There was 
the getting up from, and the getting out of, her 
low arm-chair, always a difficult, tedious pro- 
cess ; and there was the further time required for 
reaching up the chimney to get a bit of soot ; 
and for fetching the heavy footstool clear across 
the big room to stand upon, in order to see in 
the mirror. Yet all this must be done ere she 
could go out. The sun was shining too brill- 
iantly for even Miss Sophia to venture into the 
broad daylight without taking more than the 
usual precaution. Even she could not think 
of going out after having applied the soot hap- 
hazard, as she sometimes did in emergencies. 
But, fortunately, time was no consideration in 
Oldfield; and Miss Sophia was at last safely 
descended from the footstool and fully prepared 
to face the daylight and also the strange young 
gentleman from Boston. 

Lynn could not help staring a little, thus 
taken unawares ; unconsciously he had ex- 
pected Miss Sophia to be like her sister. But 
the deference with which Miss Judy laid the 
case before her struck him as an exquisite 
thing, too fine and sweet and altogether lovely 
to be smiled at, either openly or secretly. He 
did not know then — as he soon came to un- 
derstand — that Miss Sophia’s ready and firm 
response was an unvaried formula which 
vaguely served most of her simple conversa- 

175 


Oldfield 


tional requirements. But he did know, as soon 
as he saw the little old sisters together, how ten- 
derly they loved one another. Miss J udy looked 
at him with undisguised pride in Miss Sophia, 
shining in her flax-flower eyes, turning again 
as pink as the sweetest of the blush roses, with 
delight in the firm promptness with which Miss 
Sophia responded. There was only the slightest 
involuntary movement of her proud little head 
toward her sister when the gentlemen were upon 
the point of leaving; but it nevertheless re- 
minded the doctor to take Miss Sophia’s hand 
before taking her own, when he bent down to 
touch their hands with his rough-bearded lips 
in old-time gallantry, half in jest and half in 
earnest, but wholly becoming to him no less 
than to the two serious little ladies. 

The gentlemen were no sooner gone, leaving 
the sisters — or Miss Judy at least — to think 
over what had been said, than she began forth- 
with to devise ways and means of showing 
her sympathy with her neighbors, Anne and 
Tom, in their terrible affliction. Her first im- 
pulse was always to give — and she had so 
little to give, dear little Miss Judy! It now 
happily occurred to her, however, that Tom 
might like a taste of early green peas. Anne’s 
were barely beginning to bloom, as Miss Judy 
could see by looking across the big road, and 
as she told Miss Sophia. No wonder Anne had 
neglected to plant them till late, poor thing ! 
Who would have remembered the garden in 
the midst of such awful trouble as hers? And 
176 


Miss Judy’s Little Ways 

then it was still quite early in the season, — 
Miss J udy had gathered the first peas from her 
own vines only that morning, while the ten- 
der pale green pods were still wet with dew, as 
properly gathered vegetables should be. And, 
although she had gone carefully over the vines, 
cautiously lifting each waxen green tendril, 
fragrant with white blossoms, she had found 
but a handful of pods which were really well 
filled. 

“ But they are very sweet and delicate, and 
they will not seem so few if Merica puts them 
on a slice of toast and runs over with them 
while they are piping hot, before they have 
time to shrivel,” Miss Judy said, smiling happily 
at her sister as she bustled about, getting a pan 
ready for the shelling of the peas. 

Miss Sophia’s face fell. She had been look- 
ing forward to those peas ever since breakfast. 
And she remembered that Miss Judy had sent 
Tom the earliest asparagus. But she assented 
as readily and as cheerfully as she could, and, 
drawing her low rocking-chair closer to Miss 
Judy’s, resignedly settled herself to help with the 
shelling of the peas. The tinkling they made 
as they fell in the shining pan soon lulled her, 
for she never could sit still long and keep 
awake, so that she presently fell to nodding and 
straightening up and nodding again. Straight- 
ening up very resolutely, she began rocking 
slowly, trying in that way to keep from going 
to sleep. 

“ The creak of that old chair makes me sleepy 
N 177 


Oldfield 


too,” said Miss Judy, smilingly, yet looking a 
little sad. “ It sounds to-day just as it did 
when mother used it to rock us to sleep — just 
the same peaceful, contented, homely little 
creak. There ! ” she said as the last plump 
pea tinkled on the tin. “ And I declare, sister 
Sophia, just look at all these fine fat hulls ! 
Why, we can have some nice rich soup made 
out of them, as well as not ! ” 

“ Just so, sister Judy,” Miss Sophia responded 
eagerly, at once wide awake and sitting up 
suddenly, quite straight. “ And with plenty of 
thickening too.” 

“To be sure ! What a head you have, sister 
Sophia,” Miss Judy cried, admiringly. “And 
then we’ll have something to send old Mr. Mills 
as well as Tom. Just to please Kitty,” she 
added, seeing the shade which came over Miss 
Sophia’s face, and misunderstanding its source. 
“ It is ten to one but he will be in one of his 
tempers and throw the soup out of the window, 
as he did that dinner of Kitty’s — dishes and 
all. But we can instruct Merica to hold on to 
the bowl till Kitty herself takes it from her. 
It always pleases Kitty so, for anybody to show 
the old man any little attention. And, after all, 
he is not so much to be blamed, poor old suf- 
ferer. Being bedfast with lumbago must be 
mighty trying to the temper. And then Sam, 
too, is threatened with a bad pain in his back 
every time he tries to do any work. It actually 
appears to come on if he even thinks about 
working, or if a body so much as mentions work 
178 


Miss Judy’s Little Ways 

before him. Maybe that’s what makes Sam a 
bit irritable with the old man sometimes. But 
Kitty never is. All his crossness, all his un- 
reasonableness, all his fault-finding — which is 
natural enough, poor old soul — just rolls off her 
good nature like water off a duck’s back. She 
only laughs and pets him, and goes on trying 
harder then ever to please him. Did you ever 
see anybody like Kitty, sister Sophia ? ” 

Miss Judy had arisen, gathering up her apron, 
which was filled with the pea-shells; but she 
now paused, holding the pan, to await Miss 
Sophia’s reply with the greatest, keenest inter- 
est, — as she often did, — as though Miss Sophia, 
who had never been separated from her longer 
than two hours at a time in the whole course 
of their uneventful lives, might have known 
some peculiar and interesting persons, whom 
she herself had not been so fortunate as to 
meet. This was one of the things which made 
them such delightful company for one another. 
When, therefore. Miss Sophia now said, “Just 
so, sister Judy,” with great promptness and 
decision. Miss Judy was newly impressed with 
the extent and soundness of her sister’s knowl- 
edge of human nature. 

Tripping briskly out of the room carrying the 
peas and the pea-shells (to which Miss Sophia 
had secretly transferred her expectation), she 
entered the kitchen, full of thoughts of the 
delicate cooking of the peas, and was surprised 
to find Merica missing. Yet the day was 
Monday, and the smoke from the invisible 

179 


Oldfield 


and mysterious wash-kettle floated up from a 
newly kindled fire behind the gooseberry bushes. 
Miss Judy did not know what to make of Mer- 
ica’s absence at such a time ; and she stepped 
down from the rear door of the passage to the 
grass of the back yard and called. There was 
no answer, and Miss Judy stood hesitating a 
moment in puzzled astonishment, but as she 
turned there was a sudden rush — sounds of 
scuffling, a smothered shriek — and the girl fell 
over the fence, striking the ground with limbs 
outstretched, like some clumsy bird thrown 
while trying to fly. The fence, which divided 
Miss Judy’s garden from old lady Gordon’s 
orchard, was a very high one, but Miss Judy 
was more shocked than alarmed at seeing Mer- 
ica come over it in so indecorous a manner. 

“What does such conduct mean, Merica?” 
she said severely. 

The girl had never heard her gentle mistress 
speak so sharply — but she herself was past mis- 
tress of deceit. She therefore gathered herself 
up as slowly as possible, in order to gain time, 
deliberately smoothing down her skirt and care- 
fully brushing off the dirt. The mask of a 
dark skin has served in many an emergency. 
Merica could not entirely control the guilty 
shiftiness of her eyes, but she did it in a meas- 
ure, and she was quite ready with a deceitful 
explanation almost as soon as she had re- 
covered her breath. She knew from long ex- 
perience how easy it was to deceive Miss Judy, 
the most innocent and artless of mistresses. 

i8o 


Miss Judy’s Little Ways 

She also knew — as all servants know the 
sources of their daily bread — the weak spot 
in Miss Judy’s armor of innocence and artless- 
ness. Accordingly, looking her mistress straight 
in the face, Merica now said brazenly that she 
had been over to old lady Gordon’s to get the 
strange young gentleman’s clothes; and Miss 
Judy, blushing rosy red, dropped the subject in 
the greatest haste and confusion, precisely as 
Merica expected her to do. The little lady 
was indeed so utterly routed that she gave the 
order for the steaming of the peas very timidly ; 
and when Merica, seeing her advantage, fol- 
lowed it up in a most heartless manner by in- 
sisting upon boiling them instead. Miss Judy 
gave way without a struggle, and went silently 
back to the house as meek as any lamb. 

She did not mention the matter to her sister; 
the delicate subject was, in fact, rarely men- 
tioned between them, and it was, of course, 
never spoken of to any one else. To be sure, 
everybody in Oldfield had seen Merica coming 
and going with carefully covered baskets, which, 
nevertheless, proclaimed the laundry with every 
withe — as some baskets do, somehow or other, 
quite regardless of shape ; but the fetching 
and the toting, as Merica phrased these trans- 
actions, were usually in the early morning 
when the neighbors were busy in the rear of 
their own houses; or in the dusk of evening 
when the gloaming cast its shadow of softening 
mystery over the most prosaic aspects of life. 
And everybody also saw the smoke arising 

i8i 


Oldfield 


every Monday morning from beneath the wash- 
kettle, hid in its bower of gooseberry bushes; 
but no one in all the village would have been 
unkind enough to ask or even to wonder, 
whether all the white bubbles arising with the 
steam could be portions of the two little ladies’ 
own meagre wardrobe. It is true that on one 
occasion, when Sidney was very, very hard 
pressed for a new story, — as the most resource- 
ful of professional diners-out must be now and 
again, — she had been overly tempted into the 
spinning of a weird and amusing yarn, about 
seeing a long, ghostly pair of white cotton legs, 
of unmistakably masculine ownership, flapping 
over the gooseberry bushes in a high wind as 
she went home after dark on a certain wild and 
stormy night. But she could hardly sleep on the 
following night, her uneasy conscience pricked 
her so sorely, and, setting out betimes the 
next morning, she made a round over the 
complete circuit of the previous day, unre- 
servedly taking back the whole story. And 
never again did she yield to the never ceasing 
temptation to make capital of Miss Judy’s little 
ways, about which, indeed, many a good story 
might have been excellently told. 

That small gentlewoman herself, naturally, 
never dreamt of doing anything so indelicate 
as to look behind the gobseberry bushes while 
the clothes were in the tubs or the kettle or 
drying on the line. Sometimes, when she 
was compelled to send Merica away on an 
errand while the wash-kettle was boiling, sh© 

182 


Miss Judy’s Little Ways 

would take' the girl’s post temporarily and would 
punch the white bubbles gingerly with the 
clothes-stick to keep them from being burned 
against the side of the kettle ; but she always 
blushed very much and was heartily glad when 
Merica returned to her duty. The simple truth 
was that Miss Judy thought it right to allow 
Merica, on her own proposal, to earn in this 
manner the wages which she and her sister 
were unable to pay, since they could give her 
but a nominal sum out of their little pension, 
which was all that they had. And yet, al- 
though this was the case, she saw no reason 
for talking about a disagreeable thing which 
she was thus forced to put up with. She 
never spoke of anything unrefined if she could 
help it. And those who knew her shrinking 
from all the more sordid sides of household 
affairs, and from all the commonplace and 
unbeautiful aspects of life, seldom if ever ap- 
proached her with anything of the kind. 

Far, indeed, then, would it have been from 
the rudest of the Oldfield people to have hinted 
to Miss Judy of certain matters which were 
plain enough to every one else. Miss Pettus 
alone thought Miss Judy ought to be told of 
Merica’s scandalous “goings-on.” 

“ I saw her and Eunice yesterday, in old lady 
Gordon’s orchard, a-fighting over Enoch Cotton 
like two black cats — right under that poor 
little innocent’s nose — and she never knowing 
a blessed thing about it!” Miss Pettus fumed. 

But Sidney put her foot down. Miss Judy 
183 


Oldfield 


should not be told : and there was to be “ no if 
or and ” about it, either. “ What’s the use of wor- 
rying Miss Judy ? She could no more under- 
stand than a baby in long clothes. And what’s 
the odds, anyway ? ” demanded this village phi- 
losopher. “ If they ain’t a-fighting about Enoch 
Cotton they’ll be a-fighting about somebody 
else.” 

Mrs. Alexander sided with Sidney. It would 
be a shame to tell Miss Judy; as Sidney said, 
it would be like going to a little child with such 
a tale ; and the doctor’s wife strengthened the 
impression made by her own opinion by saying 
that the doctor said Miss Judy must not be 
told. He simply would not allow it — that was 
all. 

Kitty Mills, too, opposed the telling of Miss 
Judy earnestly enough, but she could not help 
laughing at the recollection of a scene which 
she had witnessed a few days before ; and which 
she now went on to describe to the ladies who 
were holding this conclave. 

“ I happened to be raising the window of 
Father Mills’s room, — he likes it down at night 
no matter how hot it is, and wants it raised and 
lowered all through the day, — and I saw Merica 
run out of Miss Judy’s kitchen, and jump the 
back fence. She couldn’t have more than 
’lighted on the ground on the other side, when 
the air was filled all of a sudden with aprons 
and head-handkerchiefs — and smothered squalls. 
And bless your soul, there sat Miss Judy by 
the front window, knowing not a breath about 
184 


Miss Judy’s Little Ways 

what was going on over in the orchard — calm 
and sweet as any May morning and pretty as a 
pink — the dear little thing, — darning away on 
Miss Sophia’s stocking, till you couldn’t tell which 
was stocking and which was darn ; and talking 
along in her chirrupy funny little way about that 
Becky (whoever she is), for all the world as if she 
were some real, live woman living that minute, 
right on the other side of the big road ; and 
there was poor Miss Sophia a-listening, pleased 
as pleased could be, and mightily interested too, 
though it was plain to be seen that she had 
no more notion of what Miss Judy was talk- 
ing about than the man in the moon ; ” and 
Kitty Mills took up her apron to wipe away 
the tears that had come from laughing over 
the picture thus conjured up. 

Old lady Gordon did not enter into the 
conclave. She thought nothing about Miss 
Judy in connection with the rivalry between 
Eunice and Merica for the heart and hand of her 
black coachman, Mr. Enoch Cotton. Indeed, 
she thought nothing at all about the matter. 
In passing it seemed to her quite in the usual 
order of colored events. It had not up to that 
time touched her own comfort at any point. 
Eunice, knowing her mistress, was careful, even 
in the height of her jealous rages, even when 
she met Merica in the orchard by challenge to 
combat, to guard the excellence and the regu- 
larity of old lady Gordon’s meals, thereby insur- 
ing against any interference from her. 

“Just give Miss Frances her way and she’ll 
185 


Oldfield 


give you your way, and that’s more than you 
can say for most folks ; lots of folks want their 
way and your way too, but Miss Frances 
don’t.” 

Eunice had said this to Enoch, who was 
comparatively a newcomer, speaking in the 
picturesque dialect of her race, which is so 
agreeable to hear and so disagreeable to read. 
Having determined, as a mature widow know- 
ing her own mind, to take Enoch Cotton unto 
herself for better or worse, it seemed to Eunice 
best to instruct him with regard to the keeping 
of his place as the gardener and the driver of 
the antiquated coach in which old lady Gordon, 
who never walked, fared forth at long and irreg- 
ular intervals. This helpful instruction had 
been given before Merica’s entrance into the 
field came cruelly to chill the confidence exist- 
ing between Eunice and Enoch Cotton. It was 
during this completely confidential time that 
Eunice had also told him that it was entirely 
a mistake to suppose the mistress to be as hard 
to get along with as some' people thought she 
was. The main thing, the only thing in fact, 
was to keep from crossing her comfort. 

“ /’ve got nothing to do but to cook what she 
wants cooked in the way she wants it cooked, 
with her batter cakes brown on both sides ; and 
to be careful to have the meals on the table at 
the stroke of the clock. You’ve got nothing to 
do but to raise plenty of the vegetables she likes, 
and to have the coach ’round at the front gate 
to the minute by the watch. We won’t have 


Miss Judy’s Little Ways 

any trouble with Miss Frances so long as we 
do what she wants and don’t cross her comfort. 
If you ever do cross it — even one time — then 
look out ! ” 

Eunice had eloquently concluded these valu- 
" able hints, silently nodding her head, with her 
blue-palmed black hands on her broad hips. 
And Enoch Cotton — alas! learned his lesson 
so well that, although old lady Gordon became 
gradually aware of his inconstancy, she saw no 
reason to interfere in Eunice’s behalf. 

Miss Judy, the only person whose comfort was 
really imperilled, sat chatting that day with Miss 
Sophia, all unconscious, till the peas were 
cooked. She then went out to put them in her 
mother’s prettiest china bowl — the little blue 
one with the wreath of pink roses round it — and 
daintily spread a fringed napkin over the top. 
Maybe Tom might notice how pretty it looked. 
Miss J udy said to Miss Sophia, though he noticed 
sadly little of what went on around him. Any- 
way, it would be a compliment to Anne to send 
the peas in the best bowl. Miss Judy hesitated 
before putting the soup in the next best bowl. 
It would be a serious matter indeed if the old 
man should seize it and fling it out of the win- 
dow before Kitty could stop him, as he often did 
with her cooking and her dishes. Still, it did 
not seem quite polite to Kitty to send it in a tin 
cup, so that, after Miss Judy had consulted Miss 
Sophia, who assented very quickly and firmly, 
— fearing that the rest of the soup might get 
cold, — Merica was given the second best bowl 

187 


Oldfield 


a/so, but charged not to let go her hold on it 
until Kitty herself took it out of her hand. 

“ Give it to old Mr. Mills with sister Sophia’s 
compliments,” Miss J udy said, with unconscious 
irony. 

Miss Sophia ate her portion of the soup with 
much satisfaction, while Miss Judy watched her 
with beaming eyes, turning at length to follow 
Merica’s progress with a radiant gaze. It al- 
ways made her happy to do anything for any 
one ; and she never felt that she had very little 
to do with. As Merica came out of the Watsons’ 
gate and started up the big road with the bowl 
of soup. Miss Judy, in her satisfaction, could 
not help calling the girl back to ask whether 
Tom Watson appeared to notice the wreath of 
roses. It was a bit disappointing to have 
Merica say that she hardly thought he had. 
Then Miss Judy, sighing a little, gave the 
servant further directions, telling her to go on 
from the Mills’ house up to Miss Pettus’s to 
ask for the loan of the chicken-snake which 
Mr. Pettus had killed that morning. Miss 
Judy was afraid that Miss Pettus would for- 
get to hang it before sundown (white side up) 
on the fence to fetch rain, which was really 
beginning to be needed very much by the 
gardens. If Miss Pettus neglected it till the 
sun went down, there would of course be no 
use in hanging it on the fence at all, so that, to 
make sure, it was better for Merica to borrow 
it and fetch it home when she came. Merica 
sullenly demurred that the snake would not 


Miss Judy’s Little Ways 

stay on the stick, and that it would crawl ofi 
as fast as it was put on ; adding rather inso- 
lently that she could not be all day putting a 
garter-snake on a stick and having it crawl off 
every step of the way down the big road — with 
a fire under the wash-kettle. But Miss Judy 
gently assured her that the garter-snake — or 
any other kind of a serpent — would stay on a 
stick if it were put on tail first. It stuck like 
wax then, Miss Judy said, and could not crawl 
off, no matter how hard it might try. 

“ And when you’ve got the garter-snake tail- 
first over the stick, you might stop and remind 
Miss Doris not to be late in coming by for me 
to go with her to-morrow morning to take her 
dancing lesson. No, wait a moment; you 
had best ask her if she will be so very kind as 
to come to see me this evening, so that we may 
practise some songs — particularly ‘ Come, rest 
in this bosom, my own stricken deer’ — and 
then we can talk over the dancing lesson,” said 
Miss Judy. 

There were not many days during the whole 
year, and there had hardly been a whole day for 
many a year, on which Miss Judy and Doris 
could not find some good and urgent reason 
for seeing one another. 


189 


XIII 


THE DANCING LESSON 

Miss Judy’s ideas of chaperonage were very 
strict. It would have seemed to her most 
improper to allow Doris to take the dancing 
lesson alone. Not that she thought any harm 
of the dancing-master; Miss Judy thought no 
harm of any one. Her ideals were always quite 
apart from all considerations of reality. It 
made no difference to her that only the neigh- 
bors were usually to be met on the way, and 
that on the morning of the first lesson the big 
road lay wholly deserted when she passed out 
of her little gate with Doris by her side — she 
herself so small, so timid, so frail, and Doris so 
tall, so valiant, so strong. Yet the sense of 
guardianship, full of deep pride and grave 
delight, filled her gentle heart even as it must 
have filled the Lion’s when he went guarding 
Una. 

It was a pity that Lynn Gordon missed the 
pretty sight. He had passed Miss Judy’s gate 
before she came forth with her charge, and now, 
all unconscious of his loss, strolled idly on in 
the opposite direction. Doris was in his mind 
as he went by the silver poplars, but he caught 
no glimpse of her through the thick foliage, and 
190 


The Dancing Lesson 

could barely see the snowy walls of the house. 
Slowly he walked on as far as the brow of the 
hill at the southern end of the village, as he had 
done once before, and stood for a moment again 
looking out over the land. Then, turning, he 
retraced his aimless steps. 

The day was like a flawless diamond^ melt- 
ing into the rarest pearl where the haze of the 
horizon purpled the far-off hills. The sapphire 
dome of the heavens arched without a cloud. 
Below stretched the meadows, lying deep and 
sweet in new-cut grass and alive and vivid and 
musical with the movement, the color, and the 
song of the birds. He did not know the names 
of half of them ; but there were vireos, and 
orioles, and thrushes, and bobolinks, and song- 
sparrows, and jay-birds, and robins — all wear- 
ing their gayest plumage and singing their 
blithest songs. Even the flickers wore their 
reddest collars and sang their sweetest notes, as 
if vying with the redwings which flashed their 
little black bodies hither and thither as flame 
bears smoke. The scarlet tanagers also blos- 
somed like gorgeous flowers all over the wide 
green fields. And the bluebirds — blue — blue 
— blue — gloriously singing, seemed to be 
bringing the hue and the harmony of the 
radiant heavens down to the glowing earth. 

The melodious chorus was pierced now and 
then by a note of infinitely sad sweetness, as 
a bird lamented the wreck of its hopes which 
had followed the cutting of the grass. But the 
mourner was far afield, so that its sweet lament 
191 


Oldfield 


was but a soft and distant echo of the world- 
pain which forever follows the passing of the 
Reaper. The young man heeded it as little as 
we all heed it, till our own pass under the 
scythe. He stopped to lean on the fence, drink- 
ing in the beauty and fragrance, thus unwit- 
tingly .disturbing the peace and happiness of a 
robin family which was dwelling in a near-by 
blackberry bush. The head of this flowering 
house now flew out, protesting with every in- 
dignant feather against this unmannerly intru- 
sion of a mere mortal upon a lady-bird’s bower. 
Trailing his wings and ruffling his crest, he 
sidled away along the top of the fence as if 
there were nothing interesting among those 
blossoms for anybody to spy out — in a word, 
doing everything a true gentleman should do 
under such circumstances, no matter how red 
his waistcoat may be. Another robin sang 
what he thought of the situation, expressing 
himself so plainly from the other side of the 
big road, that even the young man understood ; 
while still another robin, too far away to know 
what shocking things were going on, poured 
out a rapturous song as though all living were 
but revelling in sunshine. 

Lynn Gordon turned away, thinking with a 
smile what a wonderful thing love must be, since 
it could so move the gentlest to fierceness, as 
he had just seen ; and could bring the fiercest 
to gentleness, as he had often heard. Smil- 
ing at his own idle thoughts, he wandered on. 
The loosened petals of the blackberry bloom 

192 


The Dancing Lesson 

drifted before him like snowflakes wafted by 
the south wind. The rich deep clover field on 
the other side of the way was rosy and fragrant 
with blossoms. The wild grape, too, was in 
flower, its elusive aromatic scent flying down 
from the wooded hillsides, as though it were 
the winged, woodland spirit of fragrance. 

Approaching the woods at the foot of the 
hills, Lynn saw a log cabin, which he had not 
seen before, although he knew that the land 
upon which it stood was a part of the Gordon 
estate ; part of the lands which would one day 
be his own. As his careless glance rested on 
the cabin, strains of music coming from it 
caught and fixed his attention. Some one was 
playing an old-fashioned dance tune on a violin, 
and Lynn unthinkingly followed the stately 
measure till he found himself standing unob- 
served before the humble dwelling from which 
it came, free to gaze his fill at a scene revealed 
by the open passage between the two low rooms. 

The passage walls were spotless with white- 
wash, and the shadows of the trees standing close 
behind showed deeply green beyond. Against 
these soft green shadows and on one side of the 
passage stood the white-haired Frenchman. His 
fiddle was under his chin, held tenderly as though 
it were a precious thing that he dearly loved. 
His head was a little on one side and his eyes 
were partially closed, — like the birds, — as if 
he too were under the spell of his own music. 
His right arm, jauntily raised, wielded the bow: 
his left toe was advanced, then his right, now 

o 193 


Oldfield 


this one, now that one — advancing, bowing, 
retiring — all as solemn as solemn could be. 

And more serious if possible than Monsieur 
Beauchamp was Doris herself, facing him from 
the opposite side of the passage ; grave, indeed, 
as any wood nymph performing some sacred 
rite in a sylvan temple. When the young man 
saw her first, she stood poised and fluttering, as 
a butterfly poises and flutters uncertain whether 
to alight or to fly. The thin skirt of the book- 
muslin party coat, delicately held out at the 
sides by the very tips of her fingers, and lightly 
caught by the soft wind, spread like the wings 
of a white bird. The slippers, heel-less and 
yellow as buttercups, were thus brought be- 
witchingly into view — with the narrow ribbon 
daintily crossed over the instep and tied around 
the ankle — as they darted in and out beneath 
the fluttering skirt. Her golden hair, loosed 
by the dance and the breeze, fell around her 
shoulders in a radiant mantle, growing more 
beautiful with every airy movement. The ex- 
quisite curve of her cheek, nearly always color- 
less, now faintly reflected the rose-red of her 
perfect lips as the snowdrift reflects the glow 
of the sunset. Her large dark eyes were lost 
under her long dark lashes, and never wandered 
for an instant from the little Frenchman’s guid- 
ing toes. And Doris understood those toes 
perfectly, although she knew not a word of 
the dancing-master’s native language, and not 
much of her own when spoken by him, as he 
now mingled the two, quite carried away by 

194 


The Dancing Lesson 

this sudden and late return to his true vocation. 
She followed their every motion as thistledown 
follows the wind : stepping delicately, advanc- 
ing coquettishly, courtesying quaintly — as Miss 
Judy had taught her, — and retiring, alluring, 
only to begin over and over again. It was all 
as artless, as graceful, and as natural as the 
floating of the thistledown ; and such a wonder- 
ful dance as never was seen on land or sea, un- 
less — as the young man thought, with the sight 
going to his head like royal burgundy — the 
fairies might have danced something of the 
kind on Erin’s enchanted moss within the moon- 
lit ring. 

On fiddled the old Frenchman and on winged 
the young girl, both of them far too deeply 
absorbed in the serious business in hand to 
notice the onlooker, till Miss Judy came, actu- 
ally running and almost out of breath. She 
had seen the young man’s approach to the 
cabin, but she was too far away to reach it 
before him, although she had come as quickly 
as she possibly could. Hastening, she sharply 
reproached herself for having been persuaded 
to go so far from the cabin to look at Mrs. 
Beauchamp’s strawberry bed. It was, of course, 
utterly impossible to have foreseen this young 
gentleman’s appearance. Nevertheless, she 
should not have left Doris, poor child, alone 
for a moment — none knew that better than 
herself. And now to see what had come of her 
unpardonable thoughtlessness ! What would 
this stranger think of Doris, or of any well 
195 


Oldfield 


brought up girl, whom he thus found neglected.^ 
At this thought Miss Judy, for all her mildness, 
ruffled with indignation as a hen ruffles at any 
rough touch upon her soft little chicks. She 
would try, she said to herself, to retrieve her 
mistake. She would do her best to show this 
grandson of old lady Gordon — who made fun 
of everybody — that her Doris was no ignorant 
rustic, roaming the woods all forgotten by her 
proper guardians. As she ran, much agitated 
and even alarmed, the little lady mechanically 
looked over her shoulder and put her little hands 
behind her back to make sure that the point of 
her neckerchief was precisely where it should 
be. She never felt quite equal to a difficult 
undertaking until she was certain of the point’s 
exact location, and now, having learned by long 
practice to tell with some degree of certainty 
by touch, — on account of its being so hard to 
look in the long mirror, — she now thought 
that it was in its proper place, and she accord- 
ingly entered the green-shadowed end of the 
passage with a very high air. Her manner 
was indeed as high and even haughty a man- 
ner as could possibly be assumed by a very 
small, very gentle old lady, who was blushing, 
and trying to get her breath after a rush across 
a ploughed field. The greeting which she gave 
Lynn Gordon was therefore noticeably cold ; 
also the introduction to Doris was plainly 
wrung from her by politeness, and given with 
marked reluctance. So that the young man, 
not understanding in the least, naturally won- 
196 


The Dancing Lesson 

dered greatly at the change in the little lady, 
who had been so winningly gracious on the 
previous day. 

Monsieur Beauchamp’s eager hospitality did 
something to make Lynn feel less like an 
unpardonable intruder. And madame, also, 
was kind in her matter-of-fact way. She took 
no notice whatever of her husband’s introducing 
her as the Empress Maria. Acting as though 
she had been deaf she placed chairs for her 
guests, and then went out to fetch them some 
new crab cider in thick glass tumblers on a 
large deep plate. An inflexible custom of Old- 
field required that a guest should be offered 
some kind of refreshment, no matter what the 
time of day. Fortunately, there was no rigid 
rule as to the kind of refreshment; one kind 
would do as well as another, provided only that 
something was offered promptly. Each Oldfield 
housekeeper had her own preference, her own 
specialty. Miss Pettus might with perfect pro- 
priety offer a piece of fried chicken at three 
o’clock in the afternoon to a guest who had 
dined at one; old lady Gordon might order a full 
meal at any hour for any one who dropped in 
between meals, to her own and everybody else’s 
entire satisfaction ; Miss Judy might serve a 
handful of gooseberries, either green or ripe, 
on her mother’s prettiest plate, and the guest 
always remarked how pretty it was, whether she 
dared eat it or not. Mrs. Beauchamp accord- 
ingly felt herself to be uncommonly lucky in 
having this newly made, still sweet, crab cider to 
197 


Oldfield 


offer her visitors. She had seen the time when 
she had been obliged to hand a glass of toddy, and 
that, too, without a sprig of mint or a bit of ice. 

It was quite as much a part of Oldfield 
manners to accept the refreshment as to offer 
it. Miss Judy took her glass of cider and 
sipped it daintily, saying how nice it was, yet 
managing while doing this to make it quite 
> plain that the intruder was meant to feel that he 
had no share in the sweet graciousness extended 
to her hostess. The eyes of the two young 
people met involuntarily, and although Doris, 
coloring, dropped her eyes in confusion, Lynn 
saw the sudden dimpling of her cheek. It was 
the second time they had looked at each other ; 
Doris had given him one startled, fleeting 
glance, with a frightened exclamation and a 
hurried dropping of skirts, when she had first 
seen him standing in front of the passage, look- 
ing at her as she danced. He now found no 
opportunity to speak to her. Miss Judy arose 
to take Doris away as soon as courtesy would 
allow her to do so without seeming to slight 
Mrs. Beauchamp’s cider. She was ever more 
careful of the feelings of her inferiors than 
of her equals, if that were possible. She was 
quite determined, nevertheless, to withdraw at 
once. The lesson might be resumed another 
day, she said to Monsieur Beauchamp, gently 
but firmly, adding that Miss Wendall’s mother 
and uncle were doubtless expecting her. And 
this Miss Judy said loftily, almost haughtily, in 
a tone calculated to inform the young gentle- 
198 


The Dancing Lesson 

man that Miss Wendall’s mother and uncle 
were personages to be reckoned with. As Miss 
Judy left her seat, Doris also arose and started 
to get her hat, which was hanging against the 
wall. Lynn Gordon eagerly sprang up and took 
it down and handed it to her. He had no 
thought, however, of accepting his dismissal, 
when Miss Judy, after taking leave of the 
dancing-master and his wife with a grand little 
air which puzzled the worthy pair exceedingly, 
merely inclined her head stiffly in his direction. 
Instead, he coolly went before her and Doris to 
the gate, and, after holding it open till they had 
passed out, calmly followed them, carefully tak- 
ing his place by Miss Judy’s side, and away from 
Doris. 

For a few paces Miss Judy was silent with 
surprise, rigid with displeasure. She went, car- 
rying her little head very high indeed, and 
taking dainty, mincing steps. She held up the 
front of her black bombazine by a delicately 
small pinch of the cloth between her fore- 
finger and thumb, and her little finger was very 
elegantly crooked. Her sweet face was set as 
a flint. She was stern in the determination to 
set Doris right in the estimation of old lady 
Gordon’s grandson — this handsome, mannerly, 
young gentleman, who might nevertheless have 
his grandmother’s disposition as well as her 
features, for all Miss Judy knew. Yet her stiff- 
ness began to thaw under Lynn’s genial frank- 
ness as a light frost melts under a warm sun. 
He was tactful considering his age, his inexpe- 

199 


Oldfield 


nence, and especially his sex — if tact be ever a 
matter of age and experience, as it is almost 
always one of sex. He had, too, a gay, boyish 
way about him which was very winning, and 
which gradually disarmed gentle Miss Judy 
almost completely within the length of a couple 
of rods. Within three rods she began to talk 
quite naturally, the only lingering sign of her 
mildly fixed purpose being the unusually didac- 
tic turn of her remarks. 

“You know, I presume, Mr. Gordon,” she 
said primly and with significant distinctness, as 
one who weighs her words, “ that this is the 
oldest portion of Kentucky. There is, as I am 
well aware, a widespread but erroneous impres- 
sion that the Blue Grass Region is older than 
this; but no well-read person could possibly 
fall into such an unaccountable error. The real 
Kentucky pioneer was Thomas Walker, who 
came from Virginia through Cumberland Gap 
into the south-eastern part of the state in 1750, 
and made explorations coming this way ; — not 
Daniel Boone, who first entered the northern 
and middle part of it as late as 1769. The 
Blue Grass people are not to blame, perhaps, for 
honestly believing their section to be the oldest 
in Kentucky, since most of them have been 
brought up to believe it; but it is really surpris- 
ing that, with a good many reading citizens who 
know something of history, they should cling 
to this extraordinary misbelief in opposition to 
all written and unwritten history of the state. 
The first house, too, was built here in the Penny- 

200 


The Dancing Lesson 

royal Region, near Green River. Why, my dear 
sir, I can give you personal assurance that the 
ruins of this first house in Kentucky are still to 
be seen. I have never seen them myself,” added 
Miss Judy, scrupulously; “but many friends 
of mine have seen them.” 

When the young man had shown himself to 
be as much surprised and impressed as she ‘ 
thought he should be. Miss Judy went on with 
growing confidence. She called his further 
attention to the fact that this Green River 
country was also the sole region of Virginia’s 
military grants to her officers of the Revolution. 
Miss J udy cautiously disclaimed any knowledge 
of what the mother state might have done for 
the soldiers of the line — with a soft touch of 
condescension. But she spoke with authority 
in saying that Virginia had never granted a 
foot of land — north of Green River — to any 
officer of the War of Independence. 

“ I am not speaking of lands that may have 
been bought by officers from the Indians, or of 
lands that may have been taken up by officers 
as by other settlers. Lands so acquired are 
doubtless scattered all over the state. I am 
speaking only of grants of lands in Kentucky, 
given by Virginia to her officers of the Revo- 
lution for military services. These — one and all 
— were given here, in this Pennyroyal Region, 
and nowhere else ; it was here, therefore, that 
those distinguished soldiers came to live and to 
die, after doing their duty to their country. 
And it was their coming that made this Penny- 
201 


Oldfield 


royal Region so utterly unlike the rest of Ken- 
tucky.” 

“ Indeed ! Yes, I see,” responded Lynn 
Gordon, with his eyes on Doris’s dimpling 
cheek. 

And then Miss Judy’s soft heart suddenly 
smote her with the feeling that she had per- 
* haps been too severe. She had unconsciously 
been stepping more and more mincingly, hold- 
ing the pinch of black bombazine higher and 
higher, and crooking her little finger more and 
more jauntily. 

“ I have been told that there are some per- 
fectly sincere persons living in the Blue Grass 
Region who honestly believe that their estates 
were granted to an officer ancestor for service 
in the Revolution. And these deluded persons 
are not so much to be blamed as to be pitied 
for being brought up to believe something that 
is not true. It is their misfortune, not their 
fault, poor things ! ” 

Sure now that she was growing harsh indeed 
and almost cruel. Miss Judy gracefully turned 
the talk in a less serious direction, toward one 
which was, nevertheless, still calculated to im- 
press this stranger with the character of the 
country. 

“ Of course you know the heraldic herb of 
the Pennyroyal Region,” she said smilingly, as 
she pointed to an humble, unpretentious bunch 
of rather rusty green, growing thick all along 
the wayside. “We who live in it are fond of it 
and proud of it too, as fond and proud of it as 


202 


The Dancing Lesson 

England ever was of the rose, or France of the 
lily, or Scotland of the thistle, or even Ireland 
of the shamrock.” 

“ How interesting,” said the young man, still 
looking at Doris — not at the pennyroyal. 

Doris glanced also at him, feeling great pride 
in Miss Judy’s easy acquaintance with heraldic 
matters, and wishing to see if he were as much 
impressed as she thought he ought to be. 

“ Yes, I think it is interesting,” continued 
Miss Judy, making her small mouth smaller 
by pursing it up in the dainty way that she 
would have ascribed as primping. “ In fact, 
the pennyroyal has long been of far greater 
importance to the world at large than might 
be supposed by those who have not looked 
into the subject. You know, I presume, that 
many of the old English poets have men- 
tioned it in their most famous works, and 
always with the greatest respect.” 

“ Indeed,” exclaimed the young man again, 
with his gaze fixed upon the sweet curve of 
Doris’s velvet cheek. 

“ Chaucer and Dryden and Drayton and 
Spenser — every one of these fathers of Eng- 
lish poesy has something to say of the penny- 
royal,” Miss Judy went on airily, still quite 
firmly resolved to let old lady Gordon’s grand- 
son see — no matter how polite he might be 
— that Doris’s friends were well-read and cul- 
tured persons, however much to the contrary 
his first impression may have been. “ Their men- 
tions of it are mostly very mysterious, though ; 

203 


Oldfield 


they speak of it as ‘a charming, enchanting, 
bewitching herb.’ All of them, indeed, de- 
scribe it in that manner, if I remember cor- 
rectly — though one does forget so easily,” the 
little lady added, as if she read Chaucer and 
Dryden and Drayton and Spenser every day 
of her life. “ I am quite sure, however, that 
Drayton refers to it ‘ in sorceries excelling.’ 
And I also seem distinctly to recall the 
witches of The Faerie Queene as cleansing 
themselves of evil magic by a bath of penny- 
royal once a year — I don’t, though, recollect 
what they bathed in during the rest of the 
time. Spenser calls it out of its. true name, 
however, as I remember his reference to it. He 
says that the witches bathed in ‘ origane and 
thyme ’ ; but everybody knows well enough 
that origane was the pennyroyal’s name in 
Spenser’s day. Chaucer and Drayton knew 
it in their time as ‘ lunarie,’ but they all meant 
neither more nor less than our own penny- 
royal and nothing else.” 

As the three walked slowly up the big road 
under the flowering locusts. Miss Judy, relent- 
ing more and more, gradually became quite her 
sweet, friendly self. She finally admitted, with 
the gentle frankness natural to her, that she had 
never quite been able to understand these mys- 
terious poetic references to such a simple homely 
thing as the pennyroyal, which she had known 
ever since she could remember. She now freely 
acknowledged that its character must have 
altered with the passing of the ages, or must 

204 


The Dancing Lesson 


have been changed by the coming from the 
old world to the new. And yet, on the other 
hand, — as she pointed out to the young man 
in a tone of confidence, — there were the famous 
old simplists, belonging to the very time and 
the very country of these fathers of poetry, who 
had known and prized an herb which was much 
like the pennyroyal of to-day, and which they 
had called “ honesty.” 

“ This certainly must have been identical 
with our own heraldic pennyroyal,” Miss Judy 
declared. “ For that surely is the honestest 
little thing growing out of the earth. So up- 
right, so downright. So absolutely uncompro- 
mising ! Sturdy, erect, wholesome, useful, clean, 
bristly, and square of stem, it holds its rough 
leaves steady and level at the full height 
of its reach; standing thus, it never bends; 
falling, it always goes the whole way down ; 
pulled up, its roots come all at once. So 
that there is no half-heartedness of any sort 
in this most characteristic product of south- 
western Kentucky.” 

There was a shade of uneasiness in the 
proud glance which Doris now stole at Lynn, 
with a sudden uplifting of her lovely dark eyes. 
He could but admire Miss Judy’s learning, she 
thought, and yet she could not help seeing, with 
a tender sense of humor, how exquisitely quaint 
the little lady’s manner was. 

Lynn grew bold, reading the look and the 
unconscious, embarrassed, half smile. “ But, 
Miss Bramwell, pray tell me, does not the penny- 
205 


Oldfield 


royal belong to the whole state ? I have always 
taken it to be a member of the mint family.” 

Miss Judy, stepping still more mincingly, and 
holding the pinch of black bombazine higher 
than ever, tossed her little head as she ac- 
knowledged the possibility of a distant rela- 
tionship. She intimated that she considered this 
too far off to count, even in Kentucky, where 
kinship appeared to stretch farther than any- 
where else in the world. And she forthwith 
repudiated for the sturdy pennyroyal all the 
traits and the habits of the whole disreputable 
mint tribe — root and branch. 

“ Never under any circumstances will the 
honest pennyroyal be found lolling supinely 
in the low, shady, wet haunts of the mint. 
The true pennyroyal — you should know, my 
dear sir — stands high and dry, straight out 
in the open. And it stands on its native 
heath, too,” Miss Judy said, smiling herself 
now, and quite forgetting all discomfiture and 
all displeasure. “ The pennyroyal never had to 
be fetched from somewhere else — as the blue 
grass was — to give its name to its region ! ” 

They had reached Miss Judy’s gate by this 
time, and when Lynn mechanically opened it, 
the little lady passed through it before she real- 
ized that propriety required her to go all the way 
home with Doris, since the young gentleman 
evidently did not intend stopping short of 
Sidney’s threshold. But the shyness which 
was natural to her, and which had dropped 
away from her only at Doris’s need, suddenly 

?o6 


The Dancing Lesson 

came over her again. She stood still, uneasy, 
blushing, and gazing after the young couple who 
were strolling on under the flowering locusts. A 
look of apprehension quickly clouded the blue 
of her sweet old eyes with real distress. It 
was clearly wrong for her to have left them. 
She had made another mistake; her neglect 
had again placed Doris in a false light. It 
would be hard, indeed, to set this worst remiss- 
ness right. She would gladly have called to Doris 
even then, had she not feared to embarrass 
her further. The tears welled up, but she 
brushed them away, so that not one step of 
the young people’s progress up the hill might 
be lost to her wistful sight. Suddenly she 
cried out in such dismay that Miss Sophia, 
dozing as usual, was startled wide awake, and 
came to see what was the matter, as soon as 
she could rise from her chair and reach the 
door. 

“ Look at that poor, dear child ! ” cried Miss 
Judy, quite overcome. “ Just see what she is 
doing, sister Sophia ! And that, too, is all my 
fault. How was Doris — dear, dear little one — 
to know that she must never dream of taking off 
her gloves in the presence of a gentleman, when 
I have never thought to point out to her the 
indelicacy of doing such a thing .? ” 

And Doris would not know what to do 
when they reached the house. If Sidney were 
only at home, it would not be so bad — so 
Miss Judy said. But Sidney was sure to be out 
“ on-the-pad,” as she herself described her pro- 
307 


Oldfield 


fessional rounds, never suspecting that she 
might be using a corruption from the French 
of en balade. Miss Judy knew Sidney’s habits 
too well to hope for any help from the chance 
of her being at home. She — dear little lady 
— was quite in tears now and almost ready to 
wring her hands. 

Meanwhile, the young man and the young 
maid went happily along under the white-tas- 
selled locusts, between the sweet-scented green 
fields and the blooming gardens, toward the 
silver poplars. They, themselves, were not 
thinking of the conventionalities, nor troubling 
their handsome heads about the proprieties. 
Doris was chatting shyly, expressing Miss 
Judy’s thoughts in Miss Judy’s phrases with 
most winning quaintness, and at the same 
time with an unconscious revelation now and 
then of her innocent self. A gleam of sweet 
humor shone fitfully from her soft, dark eyes 
as firelight flickers through the dusk, and in 
this, at least, gentle Miss Judy had no part. 
Doris told, with the dimple coming and going 
and many swift, shy, upward glances, of Mon- 
sieur Beauchamp’s bordering the lettuce beds 
with fleur-de-lis because — as he said — they 
were the imperial lilies of France ; and of the 
scorn of the Empress Maria, who pulled them 
up as soon as his back was turned, — so that 
his feelings should not be wounded, — although 
she was quite determined thus to make room 
for the .early turnips. And then, gaining confi- 
dence from Lynn Gordon’s rapt attention, Doris 
208 


The Dancing Lesson 

went on to approach literature. She had an 
instinctive feeling that Miss Judy would have 
advised books as a theme for polite conversa- 
tion with a stranger. She had read, so she 
said, Goldsmith’s poems and some of Moore’s ; 
Miss Judy thought Burns’s poetry better suited 
to a gentleman’s than to a lady’s taste, so Do'ris 
said. She acknowledged knowing very little 
about novels, except The Children of the 
Abbey and some of Miss Jane Austen’s tales. 
Miss Judy thought, so Doris went on to say, 
that prose was less refined than poetry and 
more apt to be worldly ; so that she considered 
it best to wait till one’s ideals were well formed 
and firmly fixed, before reading very many 
novels. Miss Judy thought a great deal of 
ideals ; she considered them, next to principles, 
the most important things in the world, Doris 
said earnestly, looking gravely up in Lynn Gor- 
don’s face. There was one novel, however, 
that Doris was most eager to read. It was a 
very, very new one, and it was called Vanity 
Fair. Perhaps Mr. Gordon might have heard 
of it — then quickly — possibly he had even 
read it. She colored faintly when he said that 
he had read it and that he scarcely thought 
her quite old enough yet to enjoy it, although it 
was a great book. 

“ So Miss Judy thinks,” sighed Doris. “ Per- 
haps she will allow me to read it when I am 
older. Anyway, she lets me read all the poetry 
in her mother’s dear old Beauty Books., and it’s 
beautiful. The poems haven’t any names signed 
p 209 


Oldfield 


to them, but that doesn’t matter. They go 
with the pictures of the lovely, lovely ladies — 
all with such small waists and such long curls, 
the whole picture in a wreath of little pink 
roses and tiny blue forget-me-nots — those dear 
old Beauty Books that smell so sweet of dried 
rose leaves ! ” 


1 


310 


XTV 


MAKING PEACE 

Sidney was not only out “on-the-pad” that 
day, but she came home later than usual. The 
children and Uncle Watty were hungry and 
waiting impatiently for the basket; and there 
were many urgent household duties to be done 
before bedtime. Doris made one or two shy 
attempts to speak of her dancing lesson and 
the incident which had occurred in connec- 
tion with it. But speaking to Sidney in the 
rush of her domestic affairs was like trying the 
voice against the roar of a storm. So that 
Doris was compelled to put off the telling till 
the next morning. 

On the next morning, however, there was 
even less chance for a quiet word than there 
had been on the night before. Sidney was up 
betimes, to be sure, and bustling round, but it 
was merely in order to be ready for an impor- 
tant engagement, a most important one, which 
brooked no delay. It was barely nine o’clock 
when she set off up the big road, with her ball 
of yarn held tightly under her left arm, and her 
knitting-needles flying and flashing in the sun- 
light. Her sunbonnet was pushed as far back 
on her yellow head as it could be, to stay on at 

2II 


Oldfield 


all, and such was her stress of mind that she 
took it off and hung it on the fence, and let her 
hair down and twisted it up again, thrusting 
the comb back in place with great emphasis, 
no less than three times, within the few minutes 
during which Doris stood at the gate looking 
after her. 

It was a hard task which lay before Sidney 
that day. She was the peacemaker, as well as 
the funmaker, for the entire community. One 
fact was as well known, too, as the other, but 
there was nothing like an equal demand for the 
two offices ; for the Oldfield people dwelt to- 
gether, as a rule, in such harmony as Sidney 
found, not only monotonous, but even a little 
dull now and then. It is but natural to wish 
to exercise a talent, and to be unwilling to hide 
it, when we know ourselves to be possessed of 
it in no common degree. When, therefore, 
some foolish joke of Kitty Mills’s set the long- 
smouldering sense of wrong fiercely blazing 
in Miss Pettus’s breast, Sidney could but feel 
that her longed-for opportunity had come at 
last. She was not in the least daunted by the 
knowledge that the quarrel was an old one, 
newly broken out afresh like a rekindled fire, 
and consequently much harder to mend, or even 
to control, than if it were new. Nor had her 
ardor been lessened in the slightest by find- 
ing that everything which she had said on the 
previous evening had served but as oil to the 
flame of Miss Pettus’s burning wrath. Sidney’s 
self-confidence and courage, being of the first 


Making Peace 

order, only rose with all these obstacles. They 
merely put her all the more on her mettle, and 
she had rested well and confidently through the 
night, satisfied to have secured Miss Pettus’s 
promise not to say or to do anything until the 
following morning. Ten hours’ sleep must cool 
even Miss Pettus’s temper in a measure, Sidney 
thought, like the real philosopher that she was, 
and she herself would be better prepared with 
arguments after time for reflection. Miss Pet- 
tus had flared up like gunpowder, then as al- 
ways, when least expected, so that Sidney had 
hardly known at the moment what to say. 

And for all her reliance upon her own 
strength and tact, she had none too fully 
realized the necessity for prompt action. It 
was lucky, indeed, that she was early; for, early 
as she set out, she met Miss Pettus coming 
down the big road “hotfoot,” as Sidney said 
afterward, already on the way to see Kitty Mills. 
It was not of the slightest use. Miss Pettus 
cried, — beginning as soon as she came within 
speaking distance of the peacemaker, — not of 
the least use in the world for Sidney to begin 
again arguing about Kitty Mills’s never mean- 
ing to cheat anybody. She, Miss Pettus, was 
sick and tired of having things smoothed over, 
and of being told and told that she was mis- 
taken. She was not mistaken. The facts stood 
for themselves : Kitty Mills had said when she 
swapped the dorminica for the yellow-legged 
pullet and a bit to boot, that the dorminica 
laid big eggs. Let Kitty Mills deny that if 

213 


Oldfield 


she dared ! Then let Sidney, or the whole of 
Oldfield, come and look at the little eggs that 
that dorminica did lay. It was bad enough to 
be so cheated in a hen trade, without having it 
thrown up to you almost every day of your life, 
in some silly joke. What did Kitty Mills- 
mean, except insult, by sending her word that 
she couldn’t expect a fat hen to lay the same 
up hill and down dale. And then, as if that 
were not enough, what did Kitty Mills do, but 
send back that same yellow-legged pullet, and 
even the very same bit, offering to swap again. 
All this Miss Pettus demanded breathlessly in 
unabated excitement. 

“ I give you, and anybody else, my solemn 
word, as a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, that that was the tenth time that the 
identical yellow-legged pullet and the identical 
bit have been toted up this hill and toted down 
again. Kitty Mills offers to swap back every 
time she thinks of it, just to be aggravating. No, 
you needn’t talk to me, Sidney. Kitty Mills 
means to show me that she believes it’s the 
pullet and the bit that I care about, not the 
principle of the thing.” 

Plainly it was now become a case for diplo- 
macy, not for further argument. Sidney, there- 
fore, said simply, like a wise woman, that she 
would go at once and try to make Kitty Mills 
see how foolish she had been. 

“ I told Miss Pettus,” Sidney said later to 
Kitty Mills, when giving her an account of 
this encounter with Miss Pettus, “that there 

214 


Making Peace 

was no more satisfaction in quarrelling with 
you than in fighting a feather bed. But I 
couldn’t do much with her. Nobody can budge 
’er, once her dander, is up. I left her there, 
planted right in the middle of the big road, 
with her skirt dragging behind, and held high 
before, showing her pigeon-toes turned in worse 
than ever, and her bonnet hung wild over her 
left ear, as it always is when she’s in one of her 
tantrums. And now I’ve come after you, and I 
want you to stop laughing, — right off the reel, 
too, — and listen to what I’ve got to say. I’ll 
vow I don’t know what to make of you myself, 
Kitty Mills ! What’s this I hear about all the 
Millses a-swarming down from Green River, 
and about you’re inviting them to dinner.? It 
certainly does seem as if the more they pile 
on you the better you like it.” 

Mrs. Mills, trying to stop laughing, and wip- 
ing her eyes, protested (laughing harder than 
ever) that Sidney was talking nonsense. She 
declared that nobody was piling anything on 
her. She said that she was always delighted to 
have Sam’s sisters come, because Sam liked 
to have them, and Father Mills liked it, too. 

“ Well, they oughtn’t to like it ; they ought to 
be ashamed to like it. It’s nothing less than 
scandalous to allow it, when you’ve got to cook 
the dinner after nursing all night, and the 
weather’s getting real warm,” said Sidney, 
sharply, jerking out a knitting-needle, and 
slapping the ball of yarn back under her arm. 

“ But you know, Sidney, neither Sam nor 

215 


Oldfield 


Father Mills have much enjoyment, Sam’s 
had a mighty hard time this winter, with the 
misery in his back, coming on whenever he 
tried to do anything; and all his bad luck 
too.” 

“What bad luck?” demanded Sidney, hard- 
heartedly. 

“ Why, didn’t you know about his corn ? 
Every ear of his share of the crop, that his 
tenant raised on that field of mine, rotted right 
in the pen, when nobody else lost any. I de- 
clare I can’t yet see how it was.” 

“ Did Sam cover his pen as everybody else 
did ? ” asked Sidney, relentlessly. 

Kitty Mills stared, growing grave for an 
instant or two, being much puzzled. She 
wondered what in the world the question could 
possibly have to do with her husband’s loss of 
his corn. 

“ No. He didn’t cover the corn,” she replied, 
much at a loss still. “He thought the winter 
was going to be drier than it turned out to 
be. And he doesn’t often make mistakes in 
prophesying about the weather. He’s a mighty 
close, good observer of all the signs. I’ve known 
him to sit still a whole day, without getting 
out of his chair, watching to see whether the 
ground-hog saw its shadow.” 

“ Y es, I lay that’s all so. I reckon he would 
sit still long enough to find out almost any- 
thing,” responded Sidney, dryly. “ There’s 
not much use in talking to you, Kitty Mills; 
you’re just as unmanageable in your way as 
216 


Making Peace 


Miss Pettus is in hers. But I know how to get 
round her if you’ll help me do it. You know 
as well as I do how good-hearted she is, in spite 
of that peppery temper of hers.” 

Kitty Mills nodded silently, laughing again 
so that she could not speak. 

“ Well, I want you to let me ask her to come 
down here and take care of the old man, while 
you are getting dinner for that gang of Millses 
— when they swarm down from Green River. 
I would offer to do it myself, but I think I can 
help you more by talking to the Millses while 
you are busy about the cooking.” 

“ Of course you can, ” assented Kitty Mills, 
eagerly. “ And you mustn’t let me forget to 
fix up a basket full of the nicest things for 
Uncle Watty and the children.” 

“ Never mind about that now. Only I’ll tell 
you that I’m not going to pack off the cooked 
victuals. You’ve got all the work you can do. 
But you may give me something raw. We 
won’t bother now about the basket. The main 
thing is to settle this everlasting old dorminica ! 
I never was so tired of anything in all my born 
days, as I am of that contrary old hen, and 
there’s only one way to settle her. If you’ll let 
me ask Miss Pettus to come, she will do it in a 
moment — just to make you ashamed of your- 
self,” Sidney said, trying not to smile, knowing 
that to do so would be to start Kitty Mills 
laughing again. 

The quarrel having been thus adjusted, 
Sidney went to tell Miss Judy about it, know- 
217 


Oldfield 


ing how pleased she would be to hear it, even 
though the news seemed to describe a mere 
truce rather than to be a declaration of peace. 
The little lady was just crossing the big road, 
returning from a visit to Tom Watson and from 
a futile effort to cheer Anne. She stopped at 
her own gate, feeling depressed by what she had 
just seen and looking rather sad, and waited for 
Sidney to come up, welcoming her as one wel- 
comes a strong, fresh breeze on a heavy day. 
They sat down in the passage, where Miss 
Sophia was already seated, and the two little 
sisters listened to all that Sidney had to tell of 
the quarrel, without the vaguest notion that 
they were hearing a truly humorous account 
of an utterly absurd affair. Instead, they be- 
gan listening with the gravest concern, which 
turned gradually to the happiest relief. 

Miss Judy’s thoughts, however, were too full 
of Doris and the dancing-lesson and the events 
of the previous day to talk long about anything 
else. She accordingly told Sidney the whole 
story in minutest detail, as soon as she could 
get in a word, wondering somewhat that Sidney 
had not already heard it from Doris, until the 
circumstances were explained. With the men- 
tion of the young man the same thought stirred, 
silently and secretly, in both the women’s breasts, 
naturally enough, since they were both true 
women. It had, indeed, stirred in Miss Judy’s 
innocent heart while she lay dreaming with 
her blue eyes open in the darkness of the 
preceding night. But neither Miss Judy nor 
218 


Making Peace 

Sidney spoke of what they were feeling rather 
than thinking. Women rarely voice these 
subtle stirrings of the purely feminine instinct, 
if indeed they have any words for what they 
thus feel. All that Sidney said was to remark, 
in a matter-of-fact tone, that she must be going, 
as the sun was getting high, and she had several 
pressing engagements to keep before she would 
be free to fulfil her promise to help Kitty Mills 
entertain that gang of Millses, swarming down 
from Green River. 

“ If I can get away in time — for I’m engaged 
to take supper with Mrs. Alexander, as the doc- 
tor has gone ’way out on one of his long trips 
to the country — I’ll drop in at old lady Gor- 
don’s and see what the old Hessian is about.” 

Miss Judy shook her little curly head at 
Sidney’s calling any one such a hard name. She 
could not let such a serious matter pass without 
remonstrance. Yet at the same time she smiled 
and looked rather mysterious. She had secretly 
hit upon a nice little plan while talking about 
Doris and the young gentleman, and she could 
hardly wait till Sidney was out of hearing 
before disclosing it to Miss Sophia. 

“ Of course I couldn’t mention it to Sidney 
until I knew your opinion, sister Sophia. I am 
sure, though, that I am only expressing your 
ideas — less well than you would express them 
yourself — when I say that it is our plain duty 
to do something at once, to show our high re- 
gard for Doris, something to place her in a 
proper social light at a single stroke. It is 

219 


Oldfield 


all important that a girl should be properly 
launched; ” Miss Judy went on as though she 
had given long and deep consideration to the 
subject, and as if she and Miss Sophia were the 
all-powerful social dictators of a large and com- 
plicated circle of the highest fashion. “Just 
think what a difference it might have made 
for us, had our dear mother lived and Becky’s 
too, poor child.” 

“Just so, sister Judy,” responded Miss 
Sophia, with the greatest promptness and 
decision. 

“ I thought I could not be mistaken as to 
your views and wishes,” said Miss Judy, truly 
gratified. “ And you don’t think, do you, that 
it is at all necessary for us to do anything very 
elaborate or — expensive ? ” she continued, as if 
it were solely a consideration of the finest taste. 
“To my notion a tea would be most genteel, 
most highly refined; but you are, of course, the 
one to decide. Your judgment is always more 
practical than mine. I should not dare rely 
upon my own in so important a matter. But 
as I look at it, a tea would serve as well or 
better than anything else we could do to show 
everybody — including old lady Gordon and 
her grandson, who may not, being a stranger, 
and seeing Sidney and Uncle Watty, under- 
stand how Doris has been brought up — the 
high estimation in which we hold the dear 
child.” 

“Just so, sister Judy,” responded Miss So- 
phia, with positively inflexible firmness and 

S20 


Making Peace 


almost abrupt promptness, when she now began 
to understand that eating was in question. 

“ It is really a very simple matter to arrange 
a tea,” Miss Judy went on eagerly, her sweet 
face growing rosy. “ There’s mother’s sea-shell 
china, so thin, so pink, and so refined. And 
there’s her best tea-cloth that she planted the 
flax for, and bleached and spun and wove and 
hemstitched — all with her own dear hands. I 
am sure that the darn in the middle of it won’t 
show at all, if we set the cut-glass bowl over it. 
And we can fill the bowl so full of maiden’s 
blush roses that the nick out of the side will 
never be seen. Mother’s sea-shell china and 
the blushes are about the same color. Why, I 
can actually see the table now — as if it were a 
picture — all a delicate, lovely pink ! ” cried little 
Miss Judy, blushing with eagerness, and all a 
delicate, lovely pink herself. “ And the food 
must be as dainty as the table. Something very 
light and appetizing. Isn’t that your idea, 
sister Sophia ? ” 

Miss Sophia assented as usual, but not quite 
so promptly, nor quite so cordially, and any- 
body but Miss Judy must have seen how her 
face fell. She had known so many things that 
were light and appetizing, and so few that were 
really satisfying — poor Miss Sophia ! 

“ Delicate slices of the thinnest, pinkest cold 
tongue will be the only meat necessary. Any- 
thing more would be less genteel, and I am 
almost certain that Mr. Pettus would exchange 
the half of a beef’s tongue for the other head of 

231 


Oldfield 


early york. Don’t you remember, sister So- 
phia, how much he liked the other two — the 
ones he took in exchange for the sugar ? ” Miss 
Judy chirruped on, with growing enthusiasm. 
“ And Merica could make some of her light 
rolls, and shape a little pat of butter like a 
water-lily, and put it in the smallest tin bucket 
with the tight top and let it down in the well 
by a string, till it got to be real cool and firm. 
For dessert we’ve the tiny jar of pear preserves 
which we’ve been saving so long. Nothing 
could be more delicate than they are, clear as 
amber, with the little rose-geranium leaf at the 
bottom of the jar, giving both flavor and per- 
fume, till you can’t tell whether it looks pretti- 
est, tastes nicest, or smells sweetest.” 

Miss Judy’s flax-flower eyes, bright with de- 
lightful excitement, were fixed on Miss Sophia’s 
face, without seeing, as grosser eyes would have 
seen, that Miss Sophia’s mouth actually watered. 
There was a momentary silence ; and then an 
uneasy thought suddenly clouded Miss Judy’s 
beaming, blushing countenance. 

“ I had forgotten about that new-fashioned 
dish. Of course we must have some of those 
delicately fried potatoes, some like we had at 
old lady Gordon’s supper; they are cut very, very 
thin and browned till they are crisp and beau- 
tiful — dry and rustling, as the golden leaves 
of the fall. Yes, I am afraid the tea will not 
be really complete, will not be quite up to the 
latest fashion, unless we have a little dish of those. 
And we haven’t any potatoes, except the handful 

232 


Making Peace 

of peach-blows that we have saved for planting.” 
She sighed in perplexity, looking at her sister. 

“Just so, sister Judy,” responded Miss So- 
phia, more promptly and more firmly, if possible, 
than she had yet spoken. 

Miss Judy sat for a moment in dejected 
silence, turning the matter over in her mind. 
Miss Sophia rocked heavily, the sleepy creak 
of her low chair mingling pleasantly with the 
contented murmur of the bees in the honey- 
suckle. 

“ Oh ! ” exclaimed Miss Judy, her face illu- 
minated by a bright inspiration. “ How dull of 
me not to think of it before. Now I see how 
we can eat the peach-blows and plant them 
too ! We have only to pare them very thin, 
being very, very careful to leave all the eyes in 
the peel. Then we can plant the peel and fry 
the inside.” 

“ But they won’t grow,” protested poor Miss 
Sophia, almost groaning and quite desperate, 
foreseeing the long winter fast which must 
follow this short summer feast. 

“ Oh, but they’ll have to, if we plant them in 
the dark of the moon,” said Miss Judy, with 
unabated enthusiasm. 

Miss Sophia, now on the verge of tears, 
turned her broad face away, so that Miss Judy 
should not see how overcome she was, and that 
eager little lady sprang up, without suspecting, 
and ran to climb on a chair in order to look 
in the tea-caddy. This always stood on the 
mantelpiece in their room. It was drier there, 
223 


Oldfield 


Miss Judy said; it was also safer from Merica’s 
depredations, but Miss Judy said nothing about 
that. There was a momentary dismayed silence 
as a single quick glance noted the stage of 
its contents. She set the caddy in its place, 
and descended slowly from the chair, thinking 
deeply. 

“ Sister Sophia, do you happen to know 
whether Mr. Pettus has been getting any boxes 
of tea lately ” she asked casually, almost in- 
differently, as though it were an entirely irrele- 
vant matter of but small consequence. 

Miss Sophia, who kept better advised as to 
the edible side of the general store than she 
did regarding most things, nodded with reviv- 
ing spirit. 

“ Then I really must go down there at once. 
It’s a shame for me to have neglected a plain 
duty so long. You and I both know, sister 
Sophia, how much it means to Mr. Pettus to 
be able to tell his customers what we think of 
his teas. He has certainly told us often enough 
that our opinion has a considerable commercial 
value. For this reason — and on account of 
his being so obliging about exchanging things 
— it isn’t right for us to be unwilling to taste 
any other variety than the one we like. Mr. 
Pettus unfortunately is aware that we care 
personally for no kind except the English 
breakfast. That no doubt makes him back- 
ward in asking us to sample the other varieties. 
And that is not right, nor at all neighborly, you 
see, sister Sophia,” so Miss Judy argued, be- 

234 


Making Peace 


lieving every word she said, with all her honest, 
kind little heart. 

“Just so, sister Judy,” responded Miss Sophia, 
as readily and unreservedly as Miss Judy could 
have wished. 

Forthwith Miss Judy began to get ready for 
going to the store. She got out the lace shawl, 
which had been her mother’s, and which was 
darned and redarned till little of the original 
web was left. She took it out of its silver paper 
and folded it again with dainty care, so that the 
middle point would just touch the heels of her 
heel-less prunella gaiters. Any crookedness in 
the location of that middle point would have 
shocked Miss Judy like some moral obliquity. 
The strings of her dove-colored bonnet of 
drawn silk must also be tied “ just so ” in a 
prim little bow precisely under her pretty chin. 
Miss Sophia was always anxiously consulted as 
to the size and the angle and the precision of 
that little bow, as if she had been some sharp 
critic, who was most difficult to please. And 
then, when Miss Judy had drawn on her picnic 
gloves of black lace, she unrolled the elaborate 
wrapping from her sunshade, which was hardly 
bigger than a doll’s parasol, and turned it up 
flat against its short handle. Finally, having 
pinned a fresh handkerchief in a snowy triangle 
to the left side of her small waist so that her 
left hand might be free to hold up her skirt, 
she took the dainty pinch of black bombazine 
between her forefinger and thumb, and, with 
the sunshade in the other little hand, sailed off 
Q 225 


Oldfield 


down the big road, smiling back at Miss 
Sophia. 

She was always a brisk walker, and she had 
nearly reached the front of the store before Mr. 
Pettus knew that she was coming. But Uncle 
Watty, fortunately, saw her approach from his 
post of lookout over the whole village, as he 
sat on the goods-box in the shade, whittling 
happily, the pile of red cedar shavings rising 
high and dry through the windless, rainless 
summer days. Without stirring from his com- 
fortable place. Uncle Watty was thus enabled, 
by merely putting his head in the door, to give 
Mr. Pettus instant warning of Miss Judy’s near- 
ness. Even then there hardly would have 
been time for Mr. Pettus to make the usual 
preparation for the little lady’s visit, had she 
not stopped to shake hands with Uncle Watty* 
and to inquire about the misery in his broken 
leg. She lingered still a moment longer to ask, 
with all the deference due a weather prophet 
of Uncle Watty’s reputation, when he thought 
there would be rain, this being indeed a matter 
of importance, with the consideration of the 
planting of the peach-blow peel lying heavy in 
the back of her mind. 

Mr. Pettus, meanwhile, made good use of the 
limited opportunity. Hastily taking up a large 
clean sheet of brown paper, he quickly divided it 
into six squares with the speed and skill of long 
practice. These squares he then hastily laid at 
regular spaces along the counter. Reaching 
round for his scoop, he ladled out a generous 

236 






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* 



Making Peace 

quantity of tea, all of a kind. He had but one 
chest of tea, yet when the contents of the scoop 
was distributed in six separate heaps, it looked 
quite as different as he meant it to look, and 
as Miss Judy believed it to be. 

She came in, radiant with smiles, fanning 
herself almost coquettishly with her sunshade, 
and congratulating Mr. Pettus on the growth 
of his business, as her beaming gaze fell upon 
the array of teas. To think that he should find 
demand for half a dozen varieties ! And, by the 
way, that was the very thing which she had come 
expressly to see him about. Then followed the 
usual long and polite conversation. Mr. Petfus 
again apologized for asking Miss Judy to 
sample so many kinds of tea, knowing that she 
really liked but one kind. Miss Judy, never to 
be outdone in politeness, protested on her side 
that it was not the slightest trouble to herself 
or Miss Sophia, whose judgment was more 
reliable than her own, to test the six varieties, 
and, indeed, as many more as might be neces- 
sary. She really would feel hurt, so she said, 
if Mr. Pettus ever again thought of hesitating 
to send them every variety in his stock. She 
admitted that she should never have been so 
thoughtless as to let him find out that her sister 
and herself had a preference for one kind above 
another. But she begged him to believe that it 
was mere thoughtlessness, not any wish to be 
disobliging. The upshot of it all was, that the 
six heaps of tea were made into a parcel too 
large for Miss Judy to carry, and Uncle Watty, 
227 


Oldfield 


who had been an interested listener from his 
seat on the goods-box, kindly offered to bring it 
with him and leave it at Miss Judy’s door on 
his way home that evening. 

Miss Judy thought Uncle Watty’s offer most 
kind, so very kind, indeed, that she straightway 
began to be troubled about inviting him to the 
tea-party. She, herself, did not mind his leg at 
all ; it only made her more sorry for him, and 
she knew that the same was true of Miss 
Sophia. It was not his fault, poor soul, that 
his leg had been set east and west, instead of 
north and south, as Sidney said. Maybe young 
Mr. Gordon would not mind either; he certainly 
seemed to be kind-hearted. But there was his 
grandmother, who was such a game-maker. 
Old lady Gordon did not mean any harm, per- 
haps; Miss Judy never believed that any one 
meant any harm. Still, Doris might be morti- 
fied if she thought Uncle Watty was being 
criticised — which would be the cruelest thing 
that Miss Judy could imagine, and the furthest 
from the secret object of the entertainment. 
She was frightened, and ready for the moment 
to give up the tea-party. Then, brightening, 
she began to hope that something would occur 
to spare Uncle Watty’s feelings — and yet keep 
him away from the tea-party. Thus she thought 
as she went home, and thus she continued think- 
ing aloud after she fancied that she was consult- 
ing Miss Sophia. 

“ For of course we can’t give the tea without 
inviting old lady Gordon. Her social position 
228 


Making Peace 

makes it essential that she shall be invited if 
Doris is to be properly launched,” Miss Judy 
said, just as though she were some artful, cal- 
culating schemer, dealing with some keen and 
suspicious stranger who was likely to raise ob- 
jections. “And I am sure that I merely express 
your views, when I say that we could not be 
so discourteous as to invite old lady Gordon 
without also inviting her grandson, when he is 
a guest at her house.” 

And Miss Sophia answered all this artfulness 
firmly, even sternly, as if she were an able 
abetter, standing ready to carry out the dark, 
deeply laid plot. 


*29 


XV 


SIDNEY DOES HER DUTY 

These pleasant plans were entirely unsus- 
pected by Sidney. She felt, however, the need 
of something of the kind, and — with charac- 
teristic energy — entered forthwith into the 
making and the carrying out of some of her 
own, of a different kind, though leading in the 
same direction. 

The call upon old lady Gordon, a first step, 
turned out a good deal of a disappointment. 
Lynn Gordon was, to be sure, in attendance 
upon his grandmother when Sidney appeared, 
and she thus secured a glimpse of him, but noth- 
ing more satisfactory, nothing nearly approach- 
ing acquaintance. As ill luck would have it, old 
lady Gordon, who rarely left home, chanced to be 
just starting to “ make a broad,” as the Oldfield 
people described visiting beyond the village. 
The ancient family carriage, with its fat pair 
of old grays, already waited at the front gate 
in the shade of the cypress tree. On the back 
of the coach was a trunk-rack, put there, doubt- 
less, at the building of the vehicle in the days 
when the country gentry travelled far in their 
own coaches, and had need of their wardrobes 
on the road. Under the reign of the present 

230 


Sidney Does Her Duty 

mistress, who had not for years gone farther 
than a single day’s journey from home, the 
trunk-rack had been turned to other than its 
original uses, and on that particular morning it 
bore a large hamper of food. This was so full 
and heavy that it had been all that Enoch and 
Eunice could do to carry it between them; and, 
now when it was securely strapped in its place 
and Enoch was seated upon the box of the 
coach, Eunice stood leaning over the fence, 
with her arms rolled in her apron, giving Enoch 
final directions for the serving of the luncheon, 
so that there might be no trouble with the 
mistress. 

Old lady Gordon was coming down the front 
walk of mossy, greening bricks, leading from 
the door to the gate ; and she looked a hand- 
some, stately figure in her flowing white dress, 
notwithstanding her age and her weight. But 
Sidney’s gaze and Sidney’s interest were not 
for old lady Gordon; they were for the tall young 
man on whose arm she leaned, as if she liked 
to lean on it, not as if she needed its support. 
It was the first time that Sidney had seen him 
nearer than across the meeting-house. When 
she now observed how like his grandmother he 
was, she suddenly stopped quite still and, laying 
her knitting on the gate-post, took off her 
bonnet and let her hair down and twisted it 
up again, very, very tight indeed. 

“Good morning, Sidney. You know my 
grandson,” old lady Gordon said carelessly, 
going straight on to the carriage. 

231 


Oldfield 


She liked Sidney as she liked everybody who 
never bored her, but it did not occur to her to 
allow Sidney’s — or anybody’s — coming to in- 
terfere with her “ making a broad ” or doing 
anything that she wished to do. Accordingly 
she now ascended the folding steps of the 
coach, which were already unfolded for her con- 
venience, and with her grandson’s assistance 
deliberately settled herself in perfect comfort 
by unhasting degrees. Her bag, which a little 
negro boy presently came running to bring, was 
then hung inside the carriage close to her hand. 

“Now! ’’said old lady Gordon. “Jump in, 
Sidney, and I’ll take you home. It will not be 
at all out of my way, and you can tell me the 
news as we go along.” 

Sidney, surprised, stood hesitating. She had 
been looking on, taking notes for future conver- 
sational uses. It was not every day that she 
could gather such good materials ; and she had 
not lost a detail of this starting of old lady 
Gordon to “ make a broad.” And, while busily 
laying these matters away in the rich storehouse 
of her memory, Sidney had, at the same time, 
been calculating with certainty upon the fine 
opportunity for making the young man’s 
acquaintance which old lady Gordon’s going 
would give her. It is the first instinct of a wise 
mother to learn all that she can, — advanta- 
geous or otherwise — of any man who may 
look toward her young daughter. It is the last 
instinct of the wise mother to learn anything 
to the disadvantage of any man at whom her 

232 


Sidney Does Her Duty 

daughter may look. Sidney, wise enough in 
her blunt, straightforward way, was far from 
being a designing woman ; she was merely try- 
ing, in her blundering manner, to do what she 
believed to be her duty by Doris. Naturally, 
then, she hesitated, unwilling to lose this good 
chance of making Lynn Gordon’s acquaintance, 
the best that she was ever likely to have. 

Old lady Gordon glanced at her impatiently, 
as she would have done at any hindrance. She 
had not the faintest inkling of what was pass- 
ing through Sidney’s mind. She had never 
thought it as well worth while to try to under- 
stand Sidney, as Sidney had always found it 
useful and easy to understand her. Old lady 
Gordon simply wished to take Sidney along in 
order that she might hear the news, as she would 
have taken the morning paper, — had Oldfield 
had one, — to toss it aside after turning it inside 
out. She saw plainly enough that for some 
reason Sidney was unwilling to come with her, 
but she did not care about people’s unwilling- 
ness if they did what she wished. Old lady 
Gordon never made any mystery of her selfish- 
ness. She was too scornful of the opinion of 
others to care what anybody else felt or 
thought, or said or did, so long as she got 
what she wanted. All this was well known to 
Sidney ; it was also perfectly plain to her that, 
if she did not take the seat in the carriage, old 
lady Gordon would make Lynn take it and go at 
least part of the way. Like the philosopher that 
she was, Sidney accordingly took the seat. One 
233 


t 


Oldfield 


of the wide folding steps was then shut up, and 
on the remaining step the little negro perched 
himself, — just as Lady Castlewood’s page used 
to perch on hers. No reason for his going 
was apparent then, or ever. But a little negro 
boy always had ridden on the step of old lady 
Gordon’s coach, and the fact that a thing always 
had been done, has always been a good and 
sufficient reason for many singular things in 
this Pennyroyal Region — as already remarked 
ere this. And thus, everything now being 
settled to old lady Gordon’s entire satisfac- 
tion, the ancient coach rumbled heavily away 
through the dust. 

However, the heavy wheels had hardly made 
a dozen revolutions before they were at the 
Watson homestead, which was the place near- 
est to old lady Gordon’s. There Sidney called 
to Enoch Cotton to put her down ; and get down 
she would and did, in spite of old lady Gordon’s 
impatient protest that there had been no time 
for the telling of news ; regardless even of her 
hasty, half-contemptuous offer to send Uncle 
Watty and the children a bag of flour. Sidney 
had her own ideas of dignity and self-respect; 
moreover she held to them more firmly than 
prouder people, having finer ones, often hold to 
theirs. Yet she was always good-natured, no 
matter how firm, and she now merely laughed, 
as old lady Gordon drove away as angry as 
she ever thought it worth while to be over 
anything save some interference with the regu- 
larity and the perfection of her meals. 

234 


Sidney Does Her Duty 

Sidney took off her sunbonnet and hung it 
on the fence, and let her hair loose and twisted 
it up again, while having her laugh out before 
going in the house. There was not a grain of 
malice in her frank shrewdness. Adversity’s 
sweet milk had been her daily drink, ever since 
she could remember. Old lady Gordon herself 
would have been amused at the good-humored 
account of her own starting to “ make a broad,” 
could she have heard Sidney telling Tom and 
Anne Watson about it. For that handsome old 
pagan had a wholesome sense of humor. But 
Tom Watson apparently did not hear ; his miser- 
able, restless eyes never turned toward Sidney, 
never for a moment ceased their fruitless quest of 
the empty big road. Only a pale shadow of a 
smile flitted over Anne’s white, tense face. And 
Sidney, seeing that her efforts were wholly 
wasted, soon arose to go on her way, and Anne 
went with her to the gate — as far as she ever 
went from her hopeless post, except for the 
breaking of bread on the Sundays when there 
was preaching at her own church ; and for an 
hour now and then, on prayer-meeting nights, 
when she felt that her own supplications alone 
were not strong enough. She held Sidney’s 
large, firm, rough, capable hand longer than 
usual, as if she instinctively sought strength 
and courage in clinging to it. Her clear eyes, 
too, were full of a silent, unconscious appeal, 
and Sidney said, in answer to the look, that 
she would come again the next day and 
every day, if her coming could help in the 

235 


Oldfield 


least. Anne simply bowed her head ; she did 
not attempt to speak, and in truth there was 
nothing to be said. She made no mention of 
any inducement to Sidney to come ; she did 
not think of it, nor indeed did Sidney. Yet, 
when Anne did think of it, later in the day, she 
was glad to send a large basket, and Sidney 
was more than glad to have it sent. 

That night Sidney dreamt of Tom, — as a 
good many people did after seeing him, — and 
the thought of him so weighed upon her on 
awakening at dawn, that she hurried through 
with her housework in order that she might go 
to Anne. But she had only the earliest morning 
hours for domestic duties, the rest of her time 
being always fully occupied with her profes- 
sional rounds; and she found much to do 
every morning before starting out. On this 
particular morning there were unusual affairs 
of rather a pressing nature. Uncle Watty had 
discovered a bumblebee’s nest under the mossy 
roof close to his bed. It was never the way of 
Uncle Watty to submit to any discomfort which 
he could avoid by complaining, and he was not 
unnaturally anxious to have this removed with- 
out unnecessary delay. Sidney, ready and re- 
sourceful, quieted his fears. She knew — so 
she declared — just how to get the bumble- 
bee’s nest down without the least trouble or 
hurting any one. As soon, therefore, as the 
kitchen was in order, she bustled into the room 
where Doris sat sewing behind the white cur- 
tain. Sidney put the broom on end in its 
236 


Sidney Does Her Duty 

accustomed place, and began rolling down her 
sleeves, getting ready to move upon the citadel 
of the bumblebees. When a thing — large or 
small — must be done, Sidney was not one to 
let the grass grow under her feet. She had 
reached the door of the passage, meaning to 
climb to the loft and to awaken Uncle Watty 
as a mere matter of precaution before begin- 
ning operations, when Doris’s voice caused her 
to pause. 

“ I haven’t had a chance, mother, to tell you 
that Mr. Gordon was here yesterday in the cool 
of the evening, before you came home. He 
didn’t come in. He only went into the gar- 
den,” Doris said, simply. 

Sidney stopped and stood still*, silently gazing 
at her daughter. 

“ He came to see the pretty-by-nights. He 
said he had never seen them open with the 
falling of the dew,” the girl went on, like a 
child. 

“ Anybody’s welcome to look at the pretty- 
by-nights,” responded Sidney, with cautious 
non-committal indifference. 

“ I told him I knew you wouldn’t care,” said 
Doris, more confidently. “ And then he asked 
if he might come early this morning to look at 
the morning-glories. He thought they must 
be lovely — such big ones, red, white, and blue 
— all over that side of the house.” 

“ They’re well enough in their place,” said 
Sidney, off-hand. And then, carelessly, after an 
instant’s pause, “ What did you say } ” 

237 


Oldfield 


“He said he was coming — before I could 
say anything.” Doris thus placed the respon- 
sibility where it belonged, made timid again by 
her mother’s manner, which she did not under- 
stand. “He may be here now, at any moment.” 

“ Well, it won’t hurt the morning-glories a 
mite to be looked at,” said Sidney. 

She stood still a moment longer, turning this 
unexpected announcement in her mind. Then, 
without another word, she went back to the 
kitchen and took up the plate containing Uncle 
Watty’s breakfast, which she had left on the 
stove to keep warm. He could eat it cold for 
once, she resolved, as she passed through the 
room. Doris, humming over her sewing, and 
looking now and then down the big road, did not 
see what her mother was doing. Strong, active, 
Sidney swiftly gained the loft, making as lithe 
noise as possible. Uncle Watty’s bedchamber 
was a corner of the loft cut off from the rest 
by a rough partition, and she approached the 
door of it with" noiseless caution. Uncle Watty 
never thought of locking or even of shutting 
it, but Sidney, after setting the breakfast on the 
floor, inside the door, now closed it softly and 
turned the key. There was an old chest sitting 
near by, and this she managed to drag across 
the door without much noise. Then she lis- 
tened for a space, with her ear against the door, 
to make sure that Uncle Watty was still fast 
asleep, and to consider the security of the barri- 
cade. Satisfied now that all was secure, that he 
could not get out, however hard he might try, 
238 


Sidney Does Her Duty 

she went down-stairs, feeling that she had done 
her utmost for Uncle Watty as well as for 
Doris. She was faithful in her service to her 
husband’s brother; she had accepted him as 
a sacred legacy when her burden was already 
heavy enough. She had never allowed the 
fact that he would not do anything for his own 
support to affect her regard for him, nor to 
lessen her efforts to provide for him ; she had 
never minded his whittling, nor his mis-set leg, 
except to be sorry for him. And yet, notwith- 
standing all this, she, with her shrewd common 
sense, saw no good that it could do him, or 
Doris, or anybody, for him to come bumping 
and stumbling down the ladder just at the time 
when the young gentleman from Boston was 
likely to be calling upon Doris. Recalling the 
likeness to his game-making grandmother, which 
had struck her as so marked on the previous 
day — which had indeed impressed her as being 
of “ the very same cut of the jib,” as Sidney 
phrased it to herself — she made up her mind, 
then and there, that he should see no reason to 
laugh at Doris or Doris’s kin, if she could help 
his seeing Uncle Watty. 

Coming now into the room where Doris still 
sat quietly sewing, in the dull brown dress, Sid- 
ney was tempted to tell her to put on the blue 
gingham which Mrs. Alexander had given 
her ; but on second thought did not. Secretly 
she doubted whether any other color would re- 
veal the soft, pure whiteness of Doris’s skin so 
perfectly as the faded brown. She accordingly 
239 


Oldfield 


left the girl to her own devices, and contented 
herself with seeing, with even more than the 
usual care, that the rising sun of red and yellow 
calico was precisely in the middle of the bed, 
that the trundle-bed was quite out of sight under 
the big bed; that the snowy scarf over the chest 
of drawers fell perfectly straight at the fringed 
ends ; and that the best side of the rag rug, the 
sole covering of the rough, well-scoured floor, 
was turned up. Finally, she hurried into the 
garden and gathered a great, tall bunch of blue 
larkspur, and put it in her best white pitcher, 
and set it on the chest of drawers. She gazed 
at it with her head critically on one side, 
after setting it down ; and, indeed, the vivid 
coloring of the homely flowers against the 
whitewashed logs was a pleasing sight, which 
might have gratified a more exacting taste 
than hers. 

An uneasy remembrance of Kate and Billy 
suddenly flashing into her quiet mind, disturbed 
it, and sent her seeking them in haste. It was 
unlucky that the day chanced to be Saturday, 
otherwise they might at once have been de- 
spatched to school, and so kept out of the way 
without Doris’s knowing anything about it. Sid- 
ney was not clear as to why she did not wish 
Doris to know that she meant to keep them 
out of the way. Her daughter’s sensibilities, 
refined by nature, and super-refined by Miss 
Judy’s training, were a long way beyond Sid- 
ney’s primitive comprehension. She had, how- 
ever, a general idea that all very young girls 
240 


Sidney Does Her Duty 


were what she called skittish, and most of them, 
consequently, greatly lacking in sound common 
sense. So that it seemed to her, on the whole, 
best to do her own duty as she saw it, saying 
nothing one way or another, and leaving Doris 
alone. Sidney had no doubt concerning her 
own duty. In the circle in which she had been 
reared, the young man who failed to find a clear 
and open field the first time he came to see a girl 
was sure not to come again. He understood 
as a matter of course, and as he was intended 
to understand — when he found any of the family 
near by — that he was not expected or desired 
to come again. It was consequently a perfectly 
plain and simple case from Sidney’s plain and 
simple point of view. She did not know what 
Doris thought of the young man ; she did not 
care what the young man thought of Doris. She 
had no distinct ultimate object. No mother 
was ever farther from any arbitrary purpose, 
or even the remotest wash, to take the shaping 
of her daughter’s future in her own hands. 
Sidney, honest, strenuous soul, meant simply 
and solely to give Doris a chance, without 
hindrance, to shape it for herself. 

Thus, as single-minded as it is ever permitted 
any woman to be, Sidney took the broom from 
its resting-place behind the door, and fared 
forth to mount guard over Billy and Kate. 
The children were peacefully at play in the 
back yard under the cherry tree. They had 
been forbidden to touch the cherries, which 
were to be exchanged for shoes at the store, 
R 241 


Oldfield 


and they only glanced wistfully up at the red- 
dening branches now and then, as they went on 
with their harmless game of mumble-peg. Sid- 
ney turned an empty tub upside down and seated 
herself upon it, between the children and the 
house, with the broom across her knees. It was 
a sight which they had never seen before, this 
amazing spectacle of their mother thus sitting 
silent and idle on a week-day. But children do 
not marvel over the unusual as grown people do, 
and after a glance or two of surprise, these two 
played on peacefully until they heard the click 
of the gate latch. Then they made a dash 
for the front yard to see who was coming, as 
they were accustomed to do, and as Sidney 
was fully prepared for their doing now. Keenly 
alert, she was instantly on her feet, and, rush- 
ing between them and the gate, she waved them 
back with the broom, flourishing it and using it 
as a baton of command. The children halted, 
staring open-mouthed, too much astounded at 
first to make a sound. And then, frightened by 
their mother’s strange behavior, they huddled 
together against the cherry tree and broke 
into loud, terrified wails. Sidney, disconcerted 
and quickly changing her tactics, did what she 
could to silence them by gentle means. She 
tried to soothe them in whispers, and failing, 
finally offered to bribe them to be quiet. If 
they were perfectly quiet till the company went 
away, she would give them, so she whispered, 
one of Miss Pettus’s cherry pies. 

“ The one with the — cross-barred — top,” 

242 


Sidney Does Her Duty 

sobbed Billy, intentionally raising his piercing 
voice several keys as he made this stipulation. 

Sidney nodded. The boy’s shrewdness in 
thus taking advantage of an unusual opportunity 
pleased her. Billy would never let chances 
pass him by as they had passed his poor father. 
Kate’s behavior was always a reflection of 
Billy’s, and there now came a lull. But Sidney 
did not relax her vigilance in the least, and still 
sat immovable on the tub with the broom resting 
on her shoulder like a sentinel’s bayonet. The 
children, more than ever wondering, though 
silently, did not return to their game, but clung 
to the shelter of the cherry tree, excitedly peer- 
ing round it in growing wonder at their mother’s 
unaccountable conduct. The little group now 
made a singular spectacle, one so very singular 
indeed, that no neighbor could think of passing 
without inquiry. Fortunately, however, no one 
went along the big road for several minutes. 
Meantime Sidney, sitting bolt upright and rigid 
on the tub, with her back to the house, and with 
her eye on the children, and the broom over her 
shoulder, ready for action, followed with her 
keen ears everything going on in the room. 
She heard the deep tones of the young man’s 
dominant voice, and the soft murmur of Doris’s 
shy replies. She knew by the sounds when the 
two young people went out of the house to look at 
the morning-glories, although the vines were on 
the other side of the house and quite out of her 
sight. Thence she traced them with intent 
listening, though she could not hear what 
243 


Oldfield 


they said, to the trellis over the garden gate, 
now richly hung with the mauve beauty and 
sweetness of the virgin’s-bower. And then 
into the garden among the sunflowers and 
hollyhocks and columbine and larkspur and 
heartsease and the riot of June roses, common 
enough, yet gay and sweet as the rarest. Sidney 
could tell just where they paused as they wan- 
dered about the little garden ; now they were look- 
ing at the sweet-williams, now at the spice-pinks, 
and now they were bending over the bunch of 
bleeding-heart, with its delicate waxen sprays 
of pink and white hearts — strung in rows like 
a coquette’s cruel trophies. To Sidney, thus 
keenly, alertly keeping track, everything seemed 
going well ; Billy and Kate too now moved 
quietly as though to return to their game of 
mumble-peg, so that, almost reassured, she was 
about to lower the broom, when she was dis- 
turbed by hearing her name called. 

She sprang up, motioning witl^ the broom, 
signalling the children to be still, and turned to 
see the doctor’s wife leaning over the fence, and 
beckoning to her. 

“ What on earth is the matter ? ” asked that 
lady. “ I’ve been watching you from my 
porch — ” 

She broke off, falling silent, at an energetic, 
imperative gesture from Sidney, and she moved 
along down the line of the fence, farther away 
from the garden, in response to Sidney’s mys- 
terious signals. 

“ Hush. Speak low,” said Sidney, bending 

244 


Sidney Does Her Duty 

over the fence and speaking herself in a hoarse 
whisper, “ Doris has got a beau ! ” 

“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Mrs. Alex- 
ander under her breath, but not as yet much 
enlightened as to the cause of the extraordinary 
manoeuvres which she had witnessed. “And 
who is it } ” 

“ Old lady Gordon’s grandson,” said Sidney, 
trying vainly to keep the triumphant note out 
of her voice. 

The doctor’s wife involuntary pursed up her 
mouth ; had she been a man, she certainly would 
have whistled. “ Indeed ! ” was all she found to 
say. 

“And why not?" Sidney flashed out, reply- 
ing to the look rather than to the word. “ Why 
not — I ask you, Jane Alexander? I have 
never gone around bragging about Doris’s 
pretty looks and ladylike ways, which good- 
ness knows she owes to the Lord and to Miss 
Judy, not to me; but if there’s another girl in 
this whole Pennyroyal Region that can hold a 
candle to her — ” 

“ Mercy sakes alive,” gasped the doctor’s wife. 
“ What’s the use of your going on like that to 
me, Sidney .f* You know as well as I do what 
the doctor and I have always thought of Doris.” 

But Sidney, aroused as only a slight — 
whether real or supposed — to a favorite child 
can arouse the most calmly philosophical mother, 
might have said a good deal more in support of 
Doris’s smartness and sweet disposition — these 
and other things were in truth on the very tip of 
245 


Oldfield 


ner tongue, when, fortunately for the doctor’s 
wife, a sudden noise drew their attention toward 
the roof of the house. Uncle Watty had at last 
succeeded, after much difficulty and several un- 
heard shouts, in getting his head out of the garret 
window close to the chimney, and, now catch- 
ing sight of Sidney, he indignantly demanded 
to know why he could not open his door, and 
peremptorily ordered her to come at once and 
let him out. She went flying over nearer to 
the window and in a low-toned diplomatic parley 
persuaded him to wait a few minutes, finally 
even inducing him to take in his head until she 
could come. It was only a momentary interrup- 
tion, but it gave Mrs. Alexander time to think, 
and, when Sidney returned to the fence, still 
holding herself with cold, resentful dignity, the 
doctor’s wife was ready with a softening propo- 
sition inviting Kate and Billy to go home with 
her to help gather cherries on the shares. 

“Very well,” said Sidney, shortly. She was 
not by any means entirely placated, but she 
never rejected a good bargain merely on account 
of some private feeling. “ There’s no need, 
though, for them to go out through the front 
gate. They can just as well get through this 
hole in the fence. It’s big' enough if they 
squeeze tight,” she added, still on guard. 

She gave the children an assistant shove which 
carried them through the narrow space of the 
broken board, hushing them to continued 
silence by making a hissing sound through her 
teeth. 


246 


Sidney Does Her Duty 

“ There ! ” she exclaimed, under her breath, 
when the two trembling, bewildered culprits 
stood beside the doctor’s wife in the big road, 
casting curious glances from their mother to the 
house. “ Now, Jane, see that they whistle every 
minute of the time they are in the cherry tree ; 
or I won’t have a cherry and you won’t have 
many, and these children will be drawn into 
double bow-knots. Mind now — don’t let ’em 
stop whistling for a single minute. 

Mrs. Alexander nodded understandingly as 
she took the children by the hand to lead them 
away; nevertheless, Sidney thought it best to 
make sure by giving the broom a last threaten- 
ing flourish. Then she returned to her post 
on the tub, facing the house, however, during 
the rest of the hour through which she faith- 
fully fulfilled sentinel duty. 


247 


XVI 


THE SHOCK AND THE FRIGHT 

The children thus flown like birds out of a 
cage, Sidney managed to get Uncle Watty down 
the stairs and off to his seat before the store door, 
all unobserved by the young couple, who were so 
absorbed in the bleeding-heart, so enchanted un- 
der the virgin’s-bower, so enthralled by the hearts- 
ease. When at last Lynn Gordon himself was 
gone, Doris found her mother quietly at work 
in the kitchen, and saw no trace of the heroic 
measures which she had resorted to. Doris asked 
timidly why she had not come in while the vis- 
itor was there, feeling instinctively that this was 
what Miss Judy would have done. But Sidney 
answered quite promptly and conclusively that 
she was too busy to waste her time thinking of 
strange young men, so that Doris was more 
than ever abashed, and turned silently back to 
her sewing and to her thoughts. 

Sidney now directed her* own attention to 
the bumblebees. She went to the front gate and 
called Tom Watson’s black boy, her strong, clear, 
fearless voice ringing out suddenly on the morn- 
ing stillness. She had already hired him to 
come by promising to mend his Sunday jacket ; 
if he would help her get rid of the bumble- 
248 


The Shock and the Fright 

bees’ nest. He accordingly appeared at once 
in answer to her call, which reached him in 
his mast;pr’s stable, and he carried his fishing- 
rod in his hand, this also being a part of the 
bargain. He handed Sidney the rod, and tak- 
ing from her a piece of rope, which she held 
in readiness, he went up the rough logs at the 
corner of the house, and ran over the roof as 
swiftly and as surely as any simian ancestors 
could have scampered through the green heights 
of the tropical forests. He let the rope down 
within Sidney’s reach. She, meantime, had 
fetched a jug of boiling water from the kitchen, 
and when she had tied this uncorked vessel to 
the end of the rope, he drew it up again till the 
jug came close under the eaves and immedi- 
ately below the dangerous bunch of gray gauze ; 
whereupon he made the rope fast to one of the 
curling boards of the mossy roof, all according 
to Sidney’s direction. This done, he sped over 
the roof again on his hands and knees and has- 
tened down the wall for safety, knowing what 
was to come. Sidney barely gave him time to 
drop from the corner logs to the ground, and then, 
grasping the fishing-pole firmly in her strong 
hands, she gave the edge of the roof a sharp, 
quick blow. The bumblebees flew out in an 
angry cloud, but Sidney, the dauntless, stood at 
her post. She struck the roof another sharp, 
quick blow — and another, tap-tap-tap, like some 
gigantic and most industrious flicker. And 
forthwith the bumblebees began to go zip-zip- 
zip — straight into the steaming mouth of the 
249 


Oldfield 


crater. It was a short shrift, and, after it, a sim- 
ple matter to punch down the nest itself with 
the fishing pole when the last bumblebee was 
drowned. That ended Sidney’s intere*st in the 
programme, but the negro boy was still curious, 
so that he took the jug into the middle of the 
big road to pour out its contents, and he was 
much gratified, with the cruelty of his age and 
sex, to find something like a quart of boiled 
bumblebees. 

Sidney, free now from pressing domestic 
affairs, bustled into the room where Doris 
sat undisturbed, singing softly over her sew- 
ing. 

“I must go by Tom Watson’s the first thing,” 
Sidney said, putting on her bonnet, settling her 
ball of yarn under her left arm, and beginning 
to knit. “ Anne seems to be at the end of her 
row, poor soul. I don’t believe that Tom notices 
anybody’s coming or going. I’m sure he doesn’t 
mine. He just sits there with his awful eyes 
wandering up and down the big road. But if 
it comforts Anne the least bit to have me go, 
I’m perfectly willing to keep on trying. Any- 
way, I’ll look in there a moment before starting 
out on my regular round.” 

“ I hope you can get home early,” said Doris, 
shyly. “ Mr. Gordon spoke of coming again 
to-day, in the Cool of the evening, to look at the 
moonflowers.” 

Sidney stopped suddenly in the middle of the 
floor, just as she had done earlier in the morn- 
ing, and looked at Doris without making an 
250 


The Shock and the Fright 

immediate reply. She took off her bonnet and 
shook her hair down, twisting it up again with 
extreme tightness. 

“ Well ! I reckon he, or anybody else, can 
look at the moonflowers just the same whether 
I’m here or not,” she said, dryly, settling the 
huge horn comb with emphasis. Putting on 
her bonnet, she began to make her knitting- 
needles fly, as she moved toward the door. 

“ Please, ma’am,” pleaded Doris, bashfully. 
She was smiling, yet quite in earnest, in her 
request. 

“ I’ll be here in plenty of time,” replied Sid- 
ney, diplomatically. 

She went straight across to the doctor’s house, 
and, calling its mistress to the gate, asked in a 
low voice if she would be so neighborly as to 
keep Billy and Kate until bedtime, or until she 
herself came by for them. Mrs. Alexander was 
surprised ; she had never before known Sidney 
to ask, or even to accept, any help in the care of 
her children. She had always been scrupulously 
careful to avoid troubling any one with them. 
For this reason the doctor’s wife agreed readily 
enough to keep Kate and Billy all night, if so 
doing would oblige Sidney in the slightest. She 
would have said the same at any time, but she 
was especially glad to get such an early oppor- 
tunity to make up the misunderstanding of an 
hour or two before. So far as she knew, Sid- 
ney never had actually fallen out with any one ; 
but Mrs. Alexander had nevertheless no wish 
to risk such a calamity, knowing full well how 

251 


Oldfield 


dull life in Oldfield would be without a daily 
chat with Sidney. And then, above all, she 
really liked and admired and respected her. So 
that, altogether, she was quite warm and even 
cordial in her willingness to keep Kate and 
Billy. She told Sidney that the doctor was 
away on one of his long trips, and that it would 
be company to have the children ; the obliga- 
tion would be wholly on her side. 

Sidney then went on down the big road well 
content, her knitting-needles flying faster and 
faster, as they always were under any unusual 
stress of thought. She nodded to Anne W atson, 
calling out as she hurried by, that she would 
come back to see Tom as soon as she could go to 
the store to speak to Uncle Watty. She found 
the old man sitting in his accustomed place 
on the goods-box at the shady side of the store 
door. She paused close beside him, fanning her- 
self with her bonnet, after she had taken it off 
to let down and twist up her hair. For she knew 
very well that all the tact and art at her com- 
mand would be needed to persuade Uncle Watty 
not to come home to supper, and to stay at the 
store — open and shut — till bedtime. Uncle 
Watty was never the one to give up his own 
wishes, if he could help it, or to sacrifice his 
supper without a struggle. 

“ But you can have a real good, comfortable 
supper right here,” urged Sidney, lowering her 
voice, so that Mr. Pettus and his one customer 
might not hear. “ You’re mighty fond of cheese 
and crackers. I’ll see that you have as much of 
352 


The Shock and the Fright 

both as you can eat.” She hesitated, and then, 
seeing that she was to be pushed to the limit 
of her resources, and knowing from long expe- 
rience that Uncle Watty would exact the full 
pound of flesh, she added ; “ And I’ll tell Mr. 
Pettus to give you a glass of apple toddy, too, 
real strong and piping hot ! ” 

“ Till the court-house clock strikes nine, then, 
and not a minute later,” growled Uncle Watty. 

Sidney was quite satisfied. She was used to 
getting what she wanted under difficulties. It 
always made her happy to succeed at all, and it 
never made her bitter to fail, even after much 
trying — this real village philosopher. How 
invincible she was that June day! How her 
knitting-needles flashed in the sunlight, flying 
ever faster and faster! And yet, full as her 
thoughts were of her own affairs, she did not 
forget or neglect Tom Watson. Indeed, not 
one of the day’s regular engagements was for- 
gotten or slighted or overlooked. She talked 
also as usual about almost everything under the 
shining sun ; but her thoughts were always 
of the moonflowers and of Doris and of old 
lady Gordon’s grandson. 

At sundown she went to take supper with 
Miss Pettus, an agreement to that effect hav- 
ing been entered into upon the day of the 
truce. But she said as soon as she entered 
the house, that she must leave immediately 
after supper, as it was absolutely necessary 
for her to see Miss Judy before going to 
bed that night. Miss Pettus, whose curiosity 
253 


Oldfield 


was excessive, did not ask what she must see 
Miss Judy about. No one ever asked Sidney 
questions about her own private affairs, freely 
as everybody always questioned her about public 
matters. This may perhaps have been one of 
the secrets of her memorable success. Miss 
Pettus was merely a little miffed to see how 
absent-minded Sidney was. What was the use 
of having cream muffins when Sidney hardly 
noticed what she was eating ! Then when 
Sidney asked to be allowed to leave the basket 
— which had been well filled for the children 
and Uncle Watty — till she came for it the next 
morning, this w’as such an unheard-of request 
that Miss Pettus’s curiosity could hardly be 
held in leash ; yet Sidney went her way without 
saying a word in explanation. 

Dusk was already falling, and the gathering 
clouds in the west hastened the gloaming. 
Sidney passed her own house, taking care to 
walk on the other side of the big road, but she 
could make out Doris’s slim white figure mov- 
ing among the flowers, and she also recognized 
the tall, dark form near by, notwithstanding the 
dim light. The murmur of the gay young 
voices, too, musically melted into the scented 
stillness. Sidney did not know that she was 
smiling as she listened, and went on wonder- 
ing what they were talking about. And she 
did not ask herself why she was glad that the 
honeysuckle smelt so sweet that night, and 
that SD many of the great white moths were 
fluttering among the moon flowers. 

254 


The Shock and the Fright 

She found Miss Judy sitting in the passage 
with Miss Sophia, as they were always to be 
found at that time on a warm evening. They 
were talking to each other as usual ; that is to 
say, Miss Judy was talking of Becky, and Miss 
Sophia was listening, with the never-flagging 
interest and complete content which they ever 
found in one another’s conversation and society. 
Nevertheless, they were heartily pleased to 
greet Sidney, and Miss Judy was particularly 
gratified by her coming in just at that mo- 
ment. The little lady had seen Lynn Gordon 
passing up the big road early in the morn- 
ing, and — quite in a quiver — had asked Miss 
Sophia if she thought he was on the way to 
call on Doris. Of course, she did not dream 
of asking Sidney anything about it, but she 
knew that she would tell her without being 
asked, in the event that he had gone to see 
Doris. And Sidney did tell her at once, since 
the telling was precisely what she had come 
for — that, and a consultation concerning such 
future steps as Miss Judy might think must 
needs be taken. Miss Judy hung upon every 
prosaic word, coloring it with her own roman- 
tic fancy, blushing rosily in the sheltering 
dimness of the passage, glowing with the new 
warmth which was fast gathering around her 
gentle heart. It was a bit of a disappointment 
that Sidney did not say what the young gentle- 
man himself had said, or what he did or how he 
looked while with the dear, dear child. Miss 
Judy almost asked, she wanted so much to 
255 


Oldfield 


know everything there was to tell. It did not 
occur to her that Sidney had not been present 
It did not occur to Sidney that she could 
have been — much less that she should have 
been. So utterly unlike were these two good, 
honest women, who were giving their whole 
minds to the happiness and welfare of the 
girl whom they both loved with their whole 
hearts. Most of all Miss Judy was longing 
to know whether Lynn had said anything of 
making another call. She could tell a good 
deal from that, she thought guiltily, feeling 
herself a very Machiavelli. Yet she hesitated 
to ask. It might possibly seem a little indeli- 
cate, a little inconsiderate of Doris, in case the 
young gentleman had not named another time. 

“ I don’t think it will rain before morning,” 
she said, observing Sidney’s glance at the clouds. 
“Young Mr. Gordon does seem real friendly,” 
she went on tentatively. “ Perhaps he will come 
again — sometime.” 

“He’s there now — twice to-day!” said Sid- 
ney, triumphantly. With the training of her 
profession she had awaited the most impressive 
moment for this crowning announcement. 

Miss Judy was stunned; there was a tremor 
of alarm in her voice when she spoke, after a 
momentary silence of frightened bewilderment. 
“ Do you mean to say, Sidney, that Mr. Gordon 
is at your house — with Doris now — to-night ? ” 

Sidney nodded coolly, trying not to show 
the complacency which she could not help feel- 
ing. “Yes. I saw him in the garden with 
256 


The Shock and the Fright 

Doris as I came down the big road — dn the 
other side.” 

Miss Judy tried to think for a space. Then 
she said, delicately but uneasily, “ Are you quite 
sure that Uncle Watty and the children will — 
will know how to do the honors ? ” 

“ Well, they can’t do any harm ! I’ve taken 
care that they couldn’t. They’re not there — 
not a blessed one of ’em ! The children are 
over at the doctor’s. Uncle Watty is down at 
the store, and he’ll stay there, too, till bedtime 

— open or shut ! ” 

As Sidney thus told what she had done, she 
tossed her yellow head, giving free rein to what 
she honestly felt to be just pride. 

Miss J udy sprang up with a smothered scream. 
“ Sidney Wendall / Do you mean to tell me 
that you have left Doris — that poor, poor child 

— to receive a perfect stranger entirely alone ? 
Oh — oh — we must run to her. What will he 
think now? The other was bad enough, but 
this can never be made right ! Run ! ” 

She sank back in the chair, pressing her 
hand to her heart, which was fluttering, as it al- 
ways fluttered under agitation, like some winged 
thing trying to escape, as perhaps it was. 

“You go — don’t wait for me,” she gasped. 
“I’ll — explain and — and — beg your pardon 

— when I get my breath. Go — go — go !" 
Sidney had risen in blank amazement, which 

swiftly changed to high dudgeon under Miss 
Judy’s incoherent reproaches. From the agitated 
outburst to the breathless close she had not the 
357 


s 


Oldfield 


vaguest comprehension of the cause of Miss 
Judy’s excitement and distress. But she saw that 
they were serious, and her anger vanished forth- 
with. She had long since fallen into the habit 
of doing whatever Miss Judy wished, even when 
she could not understand ; no matter whether it 
agreed with her own views or not, and wholly 
regardless of her own stalwart opinion of that 
little lady’s fastidious ideas, which she thought 
of as Miss Judy’s “pernickety notions.” In 
anything and everything concerning Doris, 
especially, Sidney always gave way at once 
without an instant’s demur, and she did so 
now, as soon as she had sufficiently recovered 
from her amazement to comprehend what it was 
that Miss Judy wished her to do. Her good 
humor, too, came back quickly; it was never 
absent long, and she cheerfully started toward 
home without more urging. She went at once, 
stepping out of Miss Judy’s sight with long, 
swinging strides, but soon slacking her pace, 
unconsciously smiling now as she sauntered. 
A woman who has been married is apt to smile 
at an unmarried woman’s views of love and 
courtship and kindred matters. Sidney stood 
ready to defer to Miss Judy in most things, 
humbly conscious of her own ignorance and 
honestly willing at all times to confess it. 
When, however, it came to men-folks — laugh- 
ing silently, Sidney loitered on up the big road, 
knitting much faster than she walked, for her 
needles flew just as swiftly and surely in the 
darkness as in the light. 

258 


The Shock and the Fright 

Miss Judy shed a few gentle tears in the 
gloom of the passage. Her first distinct feeling 
was acute distress for the child of her heart. 
Then it was a cruel personal disappointment to 
have her plans for Doris’s social advancement 
so shockingly upset. But presently Miss Judy’s 
cheerful spirits began to rally; the tea might 
perhaps still place Doris properly before old 
lady Gordon’s grandson, but it would be much 
harder now, owing to Sidney’s distressing 
thoughtlessness. 

“Yet she is not so much to blame, after all, 
poor thing,” said Miss Judy, wiping her eyes, 
as her heart began to beat more naturally. 
“ Sidney was not brought up as we were ; we 
are bound in fairness to consider that, sister 
Sophia,” pleaded Miss Judy, as if fearing that 
Miss Sophia might be too hard on Sidney. 

Miss Sophia straightened up and opened 
her eyes, surprised to find Sidney gone ; but 
she responded as usual with firm promptness. 
Indeed, when she had thus responded several 
times, more and more decidedly, as Miss Judy 
went on arguing with herself and thinking that 
she was discussing the situation with Miss 
Sophia, the former came gradually to feel that 
all would yet be well with Doris — as Miss 
Sophia believed and said. 

The storm-clouds piled higher and blacker, 
and the lightning flashes lit them now and 
then ; but Miss Judy, looking out the open door 
of the passage, said that she thought the cloud- 
bank lay too far south for them to get a shower, 
259 


Oldfield 


that it had drifted too far away from the rain 
quarter. The darkness deepened fast, how- 
ever. Sudden gusts of wind stirred the dust 
of the big road, and set little columns of it 
whirling along the darkening highway ; but 
there was still nothing to disturb the little sis- 
ters, sitting peacefully, contented, close together 
in their low rocking-chairs. Miss Judy was 
now chirruping quite like herself, and Miss 
Sophia listening and nodding alternately in 
happy content. Nearly asleep, she did not hear 
the soft rustle of Miss Judy’s bombazine skirt 
as it slipped off in the darkness. 

“You don’t mind, do you, sister Sophia.?” 
said Miss Judy, feeling, nevertheless, bound to 
apologize in respect for her sister. “ It’s too 
dark for any one passing to see. And it does 
make the back breadths so shiny to sit on them, 
no matter how lightly you try to sit down,” she 
added, as if she could sit any other way, dear 
little atom of humanity ! 

Nine o’clock was their bedtime, winter and 
summer, although it must be said that Miss 
Sophia was always perfectly willing to go to 
bed earlier. That night they arose, as they 
always did, on the solemn, lonesome stroke of 
the court-house clock, and turned up their little 
rocking-chairs side by side, with the seats to the 
wall, tilting them so that the cat could not 
make a bed of the patchwork cushions, and 
thus be tempted from her plain duty of attend- 
ing to the mice in the garret and the rats in 
the kitchen. The chairs being thus settled, as 
260 


The Shock and the Fright 

if for the saying of their prayers all night, Miss 
Judy bent down, and, taking both hands, rolled 
the cannon-ball out of the hollow which it had 
worn in the daytime, and sent it rumbling into 
the hollow which it had worn in the night-time. 
Shutting the door, she then dropped the wooden 
bar across it as a mere matter of routine pro- 
priety, and, after this was done, the little sisters 
began to undress with their backs to one an- 
other. When they were at last quite ready to 
retire, when Miss Sophia was in bed and Miss 
Judy was on the point of ascending by means 
of the chair, before blowing out the candle, there 
was some polite discussion and a good deal of 
hesitation whether or not to close the window 
at the foot of the bed. The ultimate decision 
was to leave it open. Miss Judy thinking this 
best on account of the night’s being so warm, 
and the clouds having drifted so far round that 
there appeared little likelihood of rain before 
morning; and Miss Sophia’s thinking that she 
thought as Miss Judy did, in this as in every- 
thing else. The window was accordingly left 
open, and this final question being settled, 
the little sisters laid themselves down side by 
side, and bade one another a formal good night, 
and wished one another pleasant dreams, and 
were soon sleeping the sleep of gentle inno- 
cence and of sweet peace with the whole world. 

But while they slept it happened unluckily 
that the clouds drifted back to the rain quarter. 
An ominous murmur arose louder and louder, 
coming nearer and nearer; the branches of ‘the 
261 


Oldfield 


old elm suddenly swept the mossy old roof, and 
about midnight the tempest broke in its utmost 
fury. At the same instant two little nightcaps 
with wide ruffles lifted themselves from the pil- 
lows, unseen and unheard by each other in the 
darkness of the night and the crash of the 
storm. Both the little sisters were terrified. 
They were always very much afraid of a storm, 
and this one was terrifying indeed. But love 
gives courage to the most timid. And they 
were very, very tender of one another, these two 
gentle, little old sisters. Miss Judy thought of 
Miss Sophia’s rheumatism, with the wind furi- 
ously beating the rain clear across the room, 
almost to the very bed. Miss Sophia thought 
of Miss Judy’s heart trouble, which she had had 
a touch of that very night, and she dreaded, for 
her sister’s sake, lest the lightning begin to flash, 
as the thunder boomed nearer and louder. But 
the loving are the daring, and each forgot her 
own terror in fear for the other. At precisely 
the same moment the two little old sisters began 
to get up and to leave their opposite sides of 
the high bed. Miss Judy, usually much quicker 
of movement than Miss Sophia, now moved so 
slowly in order not to disturb her, that she was 
longer than ever before in reaching the floor by 
way of the chair. Miss Sophia, on the other 
hand, hurried down the dwarf staircase back- 
ward, like a fleeing crab, fairly driven by alarm 
and her loving concern for Miss Judy. So that 
— still utterly unaware of one another’s being 
awake, much less astir, such was the uproar of 

262 


The Shock and the Fright 

the blast and the downpour of the rain — they 
crept tremblingly round the opposite corners at 
the foot of the bed, in the blackness of the room, 
with tightly shut eyes, with outstretched arms 
guarding their faces, and thus ran into violent 
collision. 

Neither Miss Judy nor Miss Sophia could 
ever recall very clearly what happened after 
that. The neighbors remembered only hearing, 
above the tumult of the tempest, blood-curdling 
screams and shrieks of fire, and murder, and 
theft, in tones which none of them recognized. 
The Oldfield people, men, women, and chil- 
dren, alarmed and panic-stricken, sprang from 
their beds, and rushed to the rescue through the 
storm and darkness in their nightclothes. The 
doctor alone was dressed, as he had not gone 
to bed, having just got home from the country. 
It was he — thus already afoot — who led all the 
rest, catching up his lantern, which was still 
lighted, and clubbing his umbrella for a weapon 
as he ran, as much alarmed as any one of all 
those who were rushing to the rescue. A 
single kick from his great boot shattered the 
wooden bar and burst open the front door. 
The outcry continuing, led him and those who 
followed close upon his heels to the bed- 
chamber. When he held up the lantern, 
there stood the little sisters, locked together in 
a death-grip and quite out of their senses with 
fright. Their gentle little hands, which had 
never touched one another nor any living crea- 
ture save with kindness, were fiercely clutched 

263 


Oldfield 


in each other’s gray hair, hooked like bird- 
claws through the shreds of their tattered 
nightcaps; their mild eyes, which had seen 
only love in all their tranquil lives, were still 
closed against the first horrors which they had 
ever encountered ; their soft voices, which had 
never before been harsher than the cooing of 
doves, now shrilled by wordless terror, still 
pierced the roar of the tempest with ceaseless 
shrieking. Thus it was that all the horrified 
neighbors found them. The doctor never knew 
whether he was laughing or crying when he 
picked them both up — one on each arm — and 
put them to bed as though they had been his 
own babies. 

Dear little Miss Judy! Poor little Miss 
Sophia I That night comes back to most of us 
with a smile that is tenderly close to tears. 


e64 


XVII 


love’s awakening 

But there never was any open smiling over 
the events of that memorable night. Miss 
Judy herself regarded what had happened far 
too gravely to allow of its seeming trivial or 
amusing to any one else. Indeed, she so plainly 
shrank from all mention of it that it was rarely 
spoken of at all. Everybody saw how pale she 
turned whenever it was mentioned, and how 
she pressed her little hand to her heart. So 
that, as no one ever knowingly gave the little 
lady pain, the memory soon dropped into kind 
oblivion. 

The only reminder of it was the more fre- 
quent pressure of Miss Judy’s hand to her 
heart, which had always been a weak, soft, 
fluttering little thing, and a new paleness of 
her sweet face which merely made its delicate 
blushes more lovely. The shock had been very 
great, there could be no doubt of that, and 
there was not much likelihood of her forgetting 
it; but it was ever Miss Judy’s way to put 
painful things behind her as quickly as possi- 
ble, and to turn her face toward sweetness and 
peace as naturally as a flower turns toward the 
sunlight. 


265 


Oldfield 


And she really was very happy during those 
first days following the fright. Her happiness 
always came at second hand, as perhaps the 
purest happiness always comes. She was happy 
because Doris was happy — young, beautiful, 
joyous, sparkling with health and spirits. See- 
ing this. Miss Judy found nothing lacking in 
her own life. And then she was so delightfully 
busy in building air-castles. She was, to be 
sure, nearly always busy in doing this, but she 
seemed now to have a firmer foundation to 
build upon than usually came within her 
reach. Doris and Lynn met at her house on 
these bright summer days, almost every day, 
and sometimes twice a day. Doris came at 
first oftener than she had ever come before, and 
stayed longer, on account of her own and her 
mother’s anxiety about the effect of the shock 
upon Miss Judy’s health. They knew how frail 
was the small tenement housing Miss Judy’s 
quenchless spirit. They almost held their 
breath for days after that unmentionable night. 
The entire community, indeed, was alarmed; 
even old lady Gordon thought it worth while to 
send her grandson to see how Miss Judy was, 
and to warn him against saying why he came 
lest he frighten her. Finding Doris with Miss 
Judy, the young man naturally went again on 
the next day — and the next and the next — 
without being sent. Thus gradually it came 
about in the natural order of events that Doris 
and Lynn met daily in Miss Judy’s house; 
that she saw them constantly together, and that 
266 


Love’s Awakening 

her greatest, loveliest air-castle thus grew apace, 
Every day added to its height and its beauty, 
till its crystal minarets, towering through rain- 
bow clouds, touched at last the sapphire key- 
stone of the arching heavens. 

Doris and Lynn knew nothing of all this. 
They were merely drifting — as youth usually 
drifts — with the sweet summertide. In those 
glowing, fragrant days the season was at its 
greenest and sweetest. The crystalline fresh- 
ness of spring still lingered in the dustless air, 
which was just beginning to gather the full 
fervor of the summer sunshine. Nature now 
was at her busiest, her kindest, and her cruelest 
— ^glad, blossoming, bewildering, alluring — 
wreathing her single relentless purpose with 
gayest flowers and most intoxicating perfume. 
The vivid beauty of the full leafage, gold- 
flecked by the glorious flood of sunlight, was 
not yet dimmed to the browning of a leaf’s tip ; 
every emerald blade of grass held its brimming 
measure of sap ; the rank grass under foot, the 
thick foliage overhead, the earth and the air 
alike, teemed with life and pulsated with 
wings. And every living thing, seen or un- 
seen, high or low, was being swept onward by 
the same resistless power toward the common 
altar. The lacelike white of the flowering 
elder covered the whole earth with a delicate 
bridal veil. Here, there, everywhere, floated 
the snowy foam of myriad blossoms — the crest 
of creation’s tidal wave. 

And the young man and the young maid 
267 


Oldfield 


also went the way of all innocent healthy young 
creatures in ripening summer, thinking little 
more of the titanic forces moving the world, 
than the birds and the bees and the butterflies. 
Lynn was wiser and older than Doris; yet he 
too was still young, and still far from any real 
maturity of wisdom. His knowledge of life 
was such as may be gained by a student who 
goes through a great university with a definite 
ambition steadily before him ; and who comes 
from it into the world with a clear, clean, and 
upright conception of what a man who earnestly 
means to hold a high place in it should be and 
should do. But he was only a boy grown tall 
after all, and he had never seen so beautiful a 
girl as Doris was, or any one of such indefinable 
charm or of such ineffable grace. 

He looked down at her as she walked by his 
side one day, going up the big road. They 
took daily walks together nor; without objection 
from any source. Only dear little Miss Judy, 
with her funny notions of chaperonage — which 
nobody understood any more than many other of 
the little lady’s dainty whims, and which every- 
body indulged and quietly smiled at, as at many 
another of her odd, sweet ways — would ever 
have thought of objecting. It was, indeed, an 
old, well-established, and highly respected cus- 
tom of the country for young men and young 
maids to walk alone together. Seeing them do 
this, the Oldfield people merely smiled kindly, as 
kind people do at young lovers anywhere — and 
sometimes nodded at one another, thus silently 
268 


Love’s Awakening 

saying that all was well, that this was just as it 
should be. The very fact of these daily walks 
alone together made everything perfectly open 
and clear. Even Miss Judy’s rigid scruples on 
the score of propriety gradually relaxed, as Doris 
and Lynn went so openly and frankly from her 
side to stroll toward the graveyard, day after day. 

From time immemorial the graveyard had 
been the favorite trysting-place of Oldfield 
lovers. Perhaps the graveyard of every far- 
off old village always is the lovers’ chosen 
resort. It is certainly nearly always the most 
beautiful and the most retired spot, yet it is 
also usually close by, for in death, as in life, 
humanity holds closer together in the country 
than in town, and the dead are not laid so far 
from the living. And then, to the young every- 
where, death itself always seems so distant that 
its earthly habitations have no real terrors. No 
sadness ever comes to happy youth from the 
mere nearness to the Eternal Silence ; nothing 
of the Great Mystery, vast as the universe and 
inscrutable as life, ever sounds for the happy 
young with the sighing of the wind over the 
long, long, green, green grass growing only 
over country graves, the saddening sound 
which older and less happy ears always hear. 
None of that unutterable feeling of the pain of 
living, and the peace of dying, ever wrings 
the hearts of happy lovers at the moan of the 
gentlest breeze through the graveyard cedars, 
where it seems to those who are older and 
sadder to moan as it never does elsewhere. 

269 . 


Oldfield 


Certainly, neither of the two young people, 
sitting that day on the rustic benches under 
the tallest cedar, either heard or thought of 
any of these sad things. Lynn heard mainly 
the music of the mating birds, and thought 
mostly of the exquisite curve of the fair cheek 
almost touching his arm. It was so satiny in 
its smoothness, so velvety in its softness, and 
so delicately tinted with the faint, yet warm, 
glow of rich, rare red, which gleams out of the 
deep heart of a golden tea-rose. And the glory 
of her wonderful hair! He felt, as he looked 
down upon her radiant head, so close to his 
shoulder, that he had never realized how won- 
derful its dazzling crown was, until he saw it 
now with the wondrous light of the sunset re- 
gilding its fine gold, and with the south wind 
ruffling its loveliness into more bewitching dis- 
order. As he gazed, a sudden gust leaped over 
the far green hilltops and lifted the wide brim 
of her white hat, thus revealing the full beauty 
of her face. 

Lynn saw it, with a sharp indrawing of his 
breath. A yearning so keen, so deep and tender, 
as to cross the narrow border between pleasure 
and pain, rushed into the young man’s heart. 
It has been said what an ardent lover of beauty 
he was. The feeling which swept over him now 
was the yearning that every true lover of the 
beautiful feels at the sight of great beauty: the 
hopeless desire to hold it forever unchanged — • 
be it the delicate flush on an exquisite cheek, 
which must go as quickly as it comes, the fresh- 
. i*7o 


Love’s Awakening 

ness of a perfect flower which must fade with the 
rising of the sun, or the miracle of the dawn 
which must soon vanish before the noontide 
glare. Doris seemed to him Beauty’s very 
self, to be worshipped with all his beauty-wor- 
shipping soul, not merely a beautiful girl to be 
loved with all his human young heart. 

She wore that day a dress of faded pink muslin, 
very thin, very soft, very scant, so that it clung 
close to her slender, supple form — a poor old 
dress, so old that no one could remember whose 
it had been first. The bodice opened daintily 
at the throat in the pretty old fashion known 
as “ surplice ” to the Oldfield people ; and on the 
glimpse of snow which drifted between the mod- 
est edges of the opening — where the lily of her 
fairness lay under the rose of the muslin ruffles, 
just where the sweet curve of her throat melted 
into the lovely roundness of her bosom — 
there nestled a little cross of jet held by a nar- 
row band of black velvet, tied around her neck 
and whitening its whiteness as jet whitens pearl. 
Such a poor little ornament ! Such a poor old 
dress ! And yet the picture that they made 
when Doris wore them ! 

Looking at her, Lynn knew well enough that 
he had but to loose his firm hold upon himself 
ever so little, to love her as he might never be 
able to love another woman. He never had 
seen, and never expected to see, such beauty as 
this of Doris’s, for the true lover of beauty 
knows its rarity. And nothing else in the 
world so appealed to him ; no charm of mind, 

?7i 


Oldfield 


or heart, or spirit, could ever quite make up 
for the lack of it, notwithstanding that he valued 
these qualities also, and held them higher than 
thoughtless youth often holds them. And yet, 
despite his frank recognition of the truth, he 
still had no thought of allowing himself to 
love Doris Wendall. Perhaps, all unsuspected 
even by himself, the instinct of the Brahmin 
was in him too ; of a certainty, what is bred in 
the bone is apt to come out in the flesh. But 
if this were true, if he were influenced by any 
feeling of caste, he certainly did not suspect it. 
He was not vain, with the common, harmless 
vanity of most young men ; nor was there in 
him any unbecoming pride of birth or position. 
He thought that he was held back solely by 
his determination to let nothing turn him from 
his life plans. He was wholly sincere in believ- 
ing that he was strong enough to stand firm, to 
keep himself from loving Doris, as he knew he 
could love her. The thought that she might 
love him had never crossed his mind. The 
thought of being able to win her was as far 
from him as the thought of reaching out his 
arms to gather a star — so high above all earthly 
things had his beauty-worship enshrined her. 

“ I wonder what you are thinking about,” he 
said suddenly, that day, with his eyes still on 
the curve of her cheek. “ Of late I have begun 
to believe that you don’t any longer think Miss 
Judy’s thoughts exclusively,” he went on, ban- 
teringly, in the freedom which now existed 
between them. “ More than once I have seen 


272 


Love’s Awakening 

unmistakable signs of thoughts of your own, 
thoughts which, moreover, were not in the 
least like Miss Judy’s.” 

Doris turned with a dimpling smile, and 
lifted her wide-open, frank brown eyes to his 
darker ones. “You must not laugh at dear 
Miss Judy. I never allow anybody to do that. 
I can only wish my thoughts were always as 
good and sweet as hers.” 

“I haven’t made any comparison. I’ve merely 
mentioned a difference,” Lynn said, laughing 
teasingly, in the hope that the rare tinge of 
color might linger longer on her fair cheek. 

And yet, in a way, he had been quite in 
earnest in what he had said. It was a fact that 
he had marked a great change in Doris, that he 
had come gradually to see that a simple, sound 
strength of mind, a sort of wholesome com- 
mon serise, lay under her gentle purity as solid 
white rock lies under a limpid brook. 

“ Well, it is quite true, I suppose, that Miss 
Judy never thought, in all her life, of what I was 
thinking of just then, and what I have been 
thinking of a great deal lately,” Doris said, 
slowly, shyly, as if approaching a difficult 
subject. 

“ And what is that ? What were you think- 
ing or dreaming- of, when I awakened you just 
now,” the young man asked. 

“ I wasn’t dreaming at all. I was wide awake. 
I was wondering how — ” with an effort, after 
a momentary hesitation, and in a tone so low 
that he barely heard, “ how a girl might earn a 

T 273 


Oldfield 


living for several persons — for a whole family,” 
And then, after a longer pause, a quick breath, 
and a sudden deepening of the rare red of her 
cheek, “ So that her mother need not work 
so hard,” 

It was the first time that she had spoken to 
him of this secret wish, so long cherished. She 
had, indeed, seldom mentioned her mother to 
him in any manner whatever. The reserve was 
not in the least because she was ashamed of her 
— such a feeling was unknown to Doris, She 
respected her mother and loved her, knowing, 
as no one else could know, how good a mother 
she was, how utterly unselfish, how absolutely 
upright, before the perpetual necessity which 
drove her to earn the family’s bread in the only 
way that she knew. With her whole heart 
Doris loved and honored her mother. But, alas! 
their tastes were so unlike, their thoughts were 
so different, their whole lives were so far apart. 
And neither love nor honor nor any other of 
all the tenderest, noblest feelings of the truest 
heart, can ever bring together those whom 
cruel nature has set forever apart. For it is 
one of the mysteries of the sorrow of living that 
the deep rivers of many earnest lives are thus 
set to run side by side, and yet forbidden ever 
to mingle from the beginning to the end ; from 
the unknown fountain of life to the unsounded 
sea of death, 

Lynn had noticed more than once that a 
shadow fell over Doris’s gentle spirits whenever, 
on their strolls together, they caught a glimpse 

274 


Love’s Awakening 

of Sidney. It was usually in the distance that 
they saw her, going up or down the big road, 
with her long, free, fearless step, her bonnet on 
the back of her head, and her knitting-needles 
flying as she walked. For, notwithstanding 
that Lynn had gone to her house almost daily 
now for weeks past, she had managed, by 
hook or by crook, — as she would have expressed 
it, — to hold to her original intention of keeping 
out of the way, of giving him a fair field and 
no favor, as she said to herself. Yet the young 
man had gathered, nevertheless, although he 
scarcely knew how, a tolerably correct impres- 
sion of the compelling personality of Doris’s 
mother. Little by little he had begun, conse- 
quently, to perceive the unusual and contending 
influences which had made this beautiful girl 
what she was ; and the knowledge caused him 
to wonder what she would become, now that she 
was beginning to be herself, now that the strong 
forces of her own character were already in revolt. 

He had also divined something of Doris’s 
dislike of her mother’s means of earning a liv- 
ing; but he was still far from knowing how 
strong the feeling was, or that it had grown 
with her growth, gradually and steadily, until it 
had taken a great sudden leap — thus coming 
as close to bitterness as her gentle nature could 
ever come — soon after she had met himself. 
Nor had he observed that day, as they climbed 
the hillside to the graveyard, that Doris had seen 
her mother far off and that a shadow had fallen 
at once over the brightness of her innocent talk, 
275 


Oldfield 


through which a soft gayety often shone as color 
gleams out of the whiteness of the pearl. 

“ Do you know any girls who work ? That 
is what I was thinking about,” she went on 
timidly, turning her eyes away and looking 
toward the hills enfolding the valley; the near 
green hills beyond which she had never been, 
the far empurpled hills rimming all that she 
knew of the world. 

“ Do you know any working girls ? ” she re- 
peated. “ White girls, I mean, of course. I 
was wondering — I thought that if so — perhaps 
you might know what kind of work they do. 
The kind of work that might be done by a 
young gentlewoman of good breeding.” 

It was quaintly charming to hear the last 
thing that Miss Judy would have thought of, or 
dreamed of saying, so staidly uttered, in that 
little lady’s own prim manner and in that little 
lady’s own old-fashioned words. Lynn could not 
help smiling, although there was no doubting 
Doris’s earnestness, and notwithstanding that 
there was something in her look and tone 
which touched him. 

“ I’ll have to think,” he said, half in jest and 
half in earnest. “ No, on the spur of the mo- 
ment, I am almost sure that I don’t know any 
working girl who might be described in just 
those terms. There are doubtless many work- 
ing girls who are ladies, but they would scarcely 
be likely to call themselves by such an antiquated 
name. They wouldn’t even know themselves 
by so antiquated a description.” 

276 







Love’s Awakening 

She did not smile ; silently, gravely, she turned 
her dark eyes on his face; her own face was love- 
lier than ever in its wistfulness, and her dark 
eyes softer than ever in their unconscious appeal. 

“ But I am in earnest,” she persisted. “ Have 
you ever known any — any girl — like me — 
w'ho worked ? ” 

His eyes were grave too, now, and they were 
looking straight down into hers. “ I have known 
very few girls of any kind,” he said gently. “And 
I have never known one — in the least like you.” 

A rosy light, bright as the reflection of the 
sunset’s glow, flashed over her face and beamed 
from her eyes. She did not know why she 
suddenly felt so happy. She bent down in 
sweet confusion and gathered a handful of 
the long, green grass, and began braiding the 
emerald blades with trembling fingers. Lynn 
watched her hands in the false security of his own 
strength, heedless of the spell which they were 
innocently weaving. He followed every move- 
ment of the little white fingers, so delicately 
tapering and so exquisitely tipped with rose 
and pearl; and he saw — as he saw all beauty 
— the rosy velvet of the soft little palms, and 
then his greedy gaze roved further and fed upon 
the perfection of the small feet which neither 
the poor little slippers nor the long grass could 
hide. The intensity of his gaze unconsciously 
brought a sort of nervous flutter into the little 
hands; the girl felt it, although she was not 
thinking of it, and her hands dropped suddenly 
on her lap. Her gaze, uplifted, met his again, 
277 


Oldfield 


helplessly entreating, almost with the look of a 
frightened child groping its way through the 
dark. 

“ But there must be girls who work. I must 
find out what they do. I must learn how to do 
it too — whatever it is. Won’t you help me?” 

Her lips were quivering and her eyes were 
full of tears. 

“ My dear child ! Dear, dear Doris ! How 
can I help you? You to enter the arena to 
struggle with brutal gladiators for the spoils 
which belong to the strongest and the fiercest ? 
Help you to do this — you soft, lovely, tender 
little thing ! ” 

He did not know that love thrilled in every 
tone of his voice, that passion barbed his words, 
winging them straight home to the girl’s awa- 
kened heart. He did not know that — for her 
— love all at once shone out of his eyes, daz- 
zlingly, blindingly, as a great wide door opens 
suddenly upon a chilly twilight, revealing all 
the alluring warmth, all the glowing flame of 
the home firelight within. 

“ Dear little one,” he went on, blindly, with 
infinite tenderness, “the only work appointed 
for one like you is to make a paradise out of 
a home. A woman like you was created to be 
carried over life’s rough places in a good man’s 
strong arms. There is only one place in the 
world for you. Only one — only the warm, 
sweet corner of the household fire, safe behind 
the heads of children.” 

Doris was leaning toward him with her trans- 
278 


Love’s Awakening 

parent face upturned, and he saw a sudden ten- 
der light tremble over its sweetness as dawning 
sunbeams run over rippling water, and — 
startled, fascinated, awed — he watched its 
deepening wonder, its growing radiance, its 
wondrous illumination, as the white curtain fell 
away from the lighted shrine of a spotless soul. 
There now followed an instant’s tense waiting, 
with the girl’s rose-red lips apart and a-quiver; 
with the starry darkness of her eyes softly aglow, 
as the evening star glows through the warm 
twilight ; with her exquisite face sensitively 
alight, as the spring’s tender new leaves stir, 
and dimple, and shimmer under a sudden 
shower of golden sunlight, — and then swiftly a 
shadow fell, as a wind-swept cloud covers the sun, 
■sweeping all the quivering sunbeams out of sight. 

U nexpectedly as a swallow darts downward, 
Doris bent to gather up the forgotten braid of 
long green grass. Lifting it with a queer little 
laugh, she held it out to him with a movement 
which was almost mocking and wholly unlike her 
gentle self. Her dark eyes, grown suddenly very 
bright, seemed actually to be laughing at him. 

“ Is this the kind of braids that the mermaids 
wear hanging down their backs ? ” she said, 
lightly. “No, I remember that their locks of 
seaweed flow loose, but I am sure that they are 
no greener than this.” 

He took the braid and stared at it unsee- 
ingly, as if it had been in truth some such 
marvel as a mermaid’s hair. He did not see 
that she hardly knew what she was saying. In 


Oldfield 


a crisis such as this it is nearly always the 
woman who .first recovers herself, no matter 
how young and innocent she may be, nor 
how wise the man in the ways of the world. 
And Lynn Gordon was young, too, and far from 
being wise — almost as far as Doris Wendall 
was. He knew little of women ; he had not 
had experience to teach him the subtlety of the 
simplest feminine creature ; he had forgotten 
for the moment that even the dove is artful 
enough to lure danger away from her love secret. 

He himself was agitated, confused, perplexed, 
and, most distinctly and painfully of all, he 
was wounded by a vague sense of injury — really 
hurt by a feeling that Doris had trifled with him, 
that she had not met his sincerity with the 
earnestness which he felt that he had a right to 
expect. He had spoken from his very heart; 
he had meant every word that he had said, — 
meant it as tenderly and as truly as the fondest, 
most faithful of elder brothers could speak to 
the most well-beloved of sisters. And yet Doris 
had turned from him carelessly, almost flout- 
ingly, with this light, meaningless talk about the 
mermaid’s hair. In offended, wounded silence 
he gave the braided grass again into her hand, 
and she took it laughingly, and looked at it 
absently for a moment, — at this long, long, 
green, green grass springing from human dust, 
— and then she tossed it into the air so that 
the wind caught it, bore it a little way, and, 
tiring, softly laid it down on a tombstone, thus 
giving back its own to the dead. 

280 


Love’s Awakening 

Doris stood up, and the breeze bent the faded 
muslin about her slender young body in longer 
and more enchanting curves. She pointed, still 
smiling, to the purple clouds now pinnacling 
the west, and said that it was time to be going 
homeward. As they went down the grassy 
path which wound around the hillside, she 
talked quietly of indifferent things, much as 
she always did, somewhat less at random, per- 
haps, yet with all the accustomed gentleness 
and kindness and brightness and sweetness. 

So that, although Lynn had little to say in 
response, his composure came back and his feel- 
ing of injury went away. By the time they had 
reached the silver poplars, dulled under the 
falling dusk, the chill had entirely passed, and 
happiness again warmed his honest heart. For 
such is the foolishness of love that knoweth 
not itself. For such a dull fellow is this giant 
Ambition, who must ever be vanquished by 
Love, the boy. 


281 


XVIII 


AN EMBARRASSING ACCIDENT 

The fluttering of Miss Judy’s heart still kept 
her from fixing a day for the tea-party, anxious 
as she was to do so. Certain small domestic 
irregularities also interfered with her plan. For 
some time past she had been much disturbed 
and perplexed by Merica’s disappearing at un- 
usual hours and in a most unaccountable 
manner, so that her simple and methodical 
household affairs had lately become gravely 
disordered. 

On the morning after she had seen Doris 
and Lynn returning through the fragrant dusk 
from their visit to the graveyard, she felt so 
happy and strong that she resolved to give the 
tea-party on the following day, no matter how 
her heart might misbehave. It was really silly, 
as she said to Miss Sophia, to give up impor- 
tant things merely because your heart tried, 
every now and then, to jump out of your 
mouth and sometimes would hardly beat at all. 
It was so silly that she did not intend to do it 
any longer. But on going to the kitchen, in 
order to put her plans in motion at once, she 
was dismayed to find Merica missing, as she 
had been very often of late. Miss Judy saw, 
282 


An Embarrassing Accident 

too, that the fire had not been kindled behind the 
gooseberry bushes ; that not a single spiral of 
blue smoke arose above the thick green screen. 
She consequently began worrying in her mild 
way, wondering where Merica could be, and what 
the girl could mean by such unheard-of neg- 
lect of duty, especially on Monday morning. 
Hurrying around the house, the little lady went 
to the gate and looked anxiously up and down 
the big road. No one was in sight except Tom 
Watson, sitting in his accustomed place ; but the 
sight of him always brought Miss Judy to an 
humble and almost frightened sense of her 
own mercies. She shook her head, and then 
bent it reverently, making with her little hand an 
unconscious gesture, which called up thoughts 
of the sign of the cross. 

Ashamed to be worrying over such a small 
matter with Tom Watson’s affliction in view, 
she forgot all about Merica, and, following her 
instinct to do something for those who were 
suffering, she went into the house to hold a 
consultation with Miss Sophia as to whether 
they had anything which they might send to 
Tom Watson, since they could do nothing else 
for him. 

“ There’s that pretty tender little head of 
late lettuce,” said Miss Judy, tentatively. “ I 
am afraid, though, that Tom won’t care much 
about it, but I can’t think of anything else. 
And it’s only to show our sympathy, anyway,” 
she pleaded, seeing the reluctance in Miss 
Sophia’s face and misunderstanding its mean- 

283 


Oldfield 


ing. “ It would really make quite a picture if 
we were to put it on mother’s best china plate, 
the one with the wreath of roses. And it 
would please poor Anne, whether poor Tom 
notice or not.” 

So busy was Miss Judy by this time, bustling 
about, preparing the little offering, that she 
hardly observed Merica’s sudden reappearance, 
and did not think to hold her to an accounting 
for her absence. Merely telling her to make 
haste in starting the fire behind the gooseberry 
bushes, so that she might run across the big 
road with the plate of lettuce as soon as pos- 
sible, Miss Judy thought only of giving pleas- 
ure to her neighbors. When the rose-wreathed 
green gift was ready the girl said, rather sul- 
lenly, that she did not see how she could be 
taking things to everybody all over the neigh- 
borhood and watching the boiling of the clothes 
at the same time. Miss Judy replied gently, 
though with a vivid blush, that she herself 
would watch the wash-kettle. This was an un- 
pleasant task which the little lady had rarely 
attempted, but now she bravely entered upon it 
without flinching. 

The white mysteries of the wash-kettle were 
by this time thickly veiled by a snowy cloud of 
steam. Its contents, boiling furiously, lifted big 
bubbles dangerously close to the dry, hot edge of 
the great black kettle. Miss Judy gingerly took 
up the wet stick which Merica had laid down, and 
timidly tried to push the bubbles away; but the 
harder her weak little hand pushed, the higher 
284 


An Embarrassing Accident 

and bigger the bubbles arose. Frightened, and 
not knowing what else to do, Miss Judy knelt 
beside the steaming caldron, looking amid the 
smoke and steam like some pretty little witch 
working some good incantation, and tremblingly 
drew one of the blazing brands from beneath 
the kettle. As she moved the brand, a foun- 
tain of sparks from it shot upward, to come 
showering down, and one of these fell upon 
the biggest and whitest of the bubbles. Miss 
Judy saw this as it settled, and, although the 
kettle’s contents were an indistinguishable, foam- 
ing mass, she knew instinctively that it was not 
one of Miss Sophia’s or one of her own gar- 
ments, which had been burned. She sank down 
on Merica’s stool, near the gray border of spice 
pinks, with her limbs shaking so that she could 
not stand, and her heart beating as it had never 
beaten before or since the night of the fright. 
When she could move to get up, she crept over 
to the kettle and firmly pushed the black spot 
out of sight. But she said nothing to Merica 
about it, when the maid returned, more sour 
and sullen than she had gone away. In silence 
and dejection Miss Judy went back to the 
house, and tried to think what was best to do. 
Ordinarily she turned to Miss Sophia for advice 
in trouble or perplexity, resting with perfect 
trust upon the counsel which she thought 
she received. But this serious accident, which 
must distress her sister, she now locked in her 
own bosom. Had Lynn Gordon’s shirts been 
ordinary shirts she felt that the matter would 

285 


Oldfield 


have been very much simpler. By severer 
economy, she thought that she might possibly 
have been able to buy him a new garment' 
although it was hard even for Miss Judy to see 
how the economy which they practised could be 
severer than it always was. But the little pen- 
sion for their father’s military services would not 
be due for another six months, and, moreover. 
Miss Judy would not have known where or how 
to get the costly, mysterious garment had she 
had the money, or how to find the fine tucks and 
the finer embroidery, which she had admired so 
greatly, though secretly, of course. She knew 
how fine the needle-work was, because she her- 
self had been an expert needle-woman in the 
days when her blue eyes were stronger. For 
a moment a wild hope of copying the burned 
shirt, of working the same little rim of delicate 
tracery around the button holes, darted thrill- 
ingly across her troubled mind ; but in another 
instant it was dismissed — wholly gone — with 
a sigh. She remembered, blushingly, that she 
had once heard Sidney say that the Queen 
of Sheba could not make a shirt that the King 
of Sheba would wear. Miss Judy did not re- 
member ever having read in the Scriptures 
anything about the King of Sheba, but she 
had confidence in Sidney’s opinions of a good 
many matters which she felt herself to be no 
judge of. No, there was plainly nothing to be 
done, except to darn the hole as neatly as pos- 
sible, and to tell Lynn the simple truth. Luck- 
ily, Miss Judy had reason to believe that the 
386 


An Embarrassing Accident 

injury had not been to the splendid, embroid- 
ered, tucked, and ruffled bosom. She blushed 
again more vividly — and then she turned very 
white as a sudden thought stabbed her like a 
dagger. Ah, the poor little heart ! It was 
fluttering indeed now, and beating its soft 
wings like a caged wild bird. 

The effect of the accident upon Doris’s pros- 
pects — that was the dread which suddenly 
struck terror to Miss Judy’s heart ! What would 
the young gentleman and his worldly, critical 
grandmother think, when they thus knew that 
she and Miss Sophia were aware of what was 
going on behind the gooseberry bushes ? Up to 
this crisis the means by which Merica earned the 
larger portion of her wages had seemed so dis- 
tinctly apart from Miss Judy’s own affairs, that 
she had felt no personal concern about it, beyond 
an occasional and passing embarrassment. Now, 
however, the matter became, all at once, widely 
different. How could she offer Doris the dis- 
respect of making an explanation ? Come what 
would that must be avoided, for Doris’s dear 
sake, let the cost be what it may. A few gentle 
tears trickled down Miss Judy’s cheeks as she 
sat patiently darning Miss Sophia’s stockings, 
while the latter rocked and nodded, observing 
nothing unusual. 

Many fanciful, impractical schemes flitted 
through Miss Judy’s mind, rather sadly at first, 
but gradually turning toward her natural hope- 
fulness. The end of her thoughts now, as 
always, was self-sacrifice, and the sparing of 
287 


Oldfield 


others, her sister and Doris above all. If the 
worst came to the worst, she could get the 
doctor to buy a new garment; he would know 
what to get and where to get it, — he would 
even loan her the money if she were forced to 
borrow. Meantime, with innate optimism, she 
was hoping for the best, relying upon being 
able to mend the burned hole, which might 
not be so large or so black, after all. Miss 
Judy’s cheerful spirit could no more be held 
down by ill luck than an unweighted cork can be 
kept under water. When she laid her little 
head beside Miss Sophia’s that night, her brain 
was still busily turning ways and means. If 
the severest economy became necessary, her 
sister still need not know. Once before (when 
their father’s funeral expenses were to be met), 
she had been entirely successful in keeping the 
straits to which they were reduced from Miss 
Sophia’s knowledge. Fortunately that hard 
time had come in the winter, and a turkey sent 
them by Colonel Fielding as a Christmas pres- 
ent stayed hard frozen, except as it was cooked, a 
piece at a time, for Miss Sophia, till the whole 
immense turkey had been eaten in sections by 
that unsuspecting lady. Miss Judy chuckled in 
triumph, lying there in the darkness, remem- 
bering how artful she had been in keeping Miss 
Sophia from observing that she herself had not 
tasted the turkey, and of her deep diplomacy in 
merely allowing Miss Sophia to think it a fresh 
one, every now and then, without telling an 
actual fib. It was warm weather now, to be sure, 
288 


An Embarrassing Accident 

which made a difference — and poor Colonel 
Fielding could send no more presents, but the 
way would open nevertheless, somehow ; dear 
Miss Judy was always sure that the way would 
open. No matter how severely they might have 
to economize in order to spare Doris a great 
mortification, Miss Sophia need not be deprived 
of her few comforts. And it was for this, to spare 
her sister, that Miss Judy resolved to remain 
silent, much as she valued Miss Sophia’s advice. 
In the darkness of the big old room a little 
thin hand reached out and softly patted Miss 
Sophia’s broad back with a protecting tender- 
ness, full of the true mother-love. 

At midnight Miss Judy arose, and creeping 
cautiously from her sister’s side, noiselessly 
crossed the big, dark room, a ghostly little white 
figure. It was not hard to find her thimble, 
needles and thread, and her father’s near-by spec- 
tacles, even in the darkness, since everything in 
that orderly old house was always in the same 
place ; and when she had found them, she softly 
took up the candle and matches from the chair 
beside the pillow, and with her trembling hands 
thus filled, she stole across the passage toward 
the parlor. She opened the door as stealthily 
as any expert burglar, and closed it behind her 
without the faintest creak. Then, softly put- 
ting down the other things, she lighted the 
candle, and shading it with a shaking hand, 
looked around for the basket of rough-dry 
clothes, which, for privacy more than for any 
other reason, was always put in the parlor over 
u 389 


Oldfield 


night between washing and ironing. The stiff- 
ness with which some of the well-starched gar- 
ments asserted themselves rather daunted Miss 
Judy when she first caught sight of them. Never- 
theless, she went resolutely on, and soon found 
what she sought. She blushed as she gingerly 
drew it from among the rest, the delicate color 
tinting her whole sweet face, from its pretty 
chin to its silver frame of flossy curls. Turn- 
ing the shirt over, she gave an unconscious 
sigh of relief to find how small the burned 
place really was. Burned it was, however, and 
she threaded her smallest needle with her finest 
thread and set about darning it then and there, 
with infinite patience and exquisite skill. As 
she worked, sitting on a low footstool beside the 
great basket, with the candle flickering upon a 
chair (such a pretty, pathetic little figure !) her 
thread involuntarily wrought delicate embroi- 
dery. While she thus wrought, she wished that 
she knew where gentlemen usually had their 
monograms embroidered on garments of this 
description. She could not remember ever 
having seen any on her father’s — and she had 
never seen anybody else’s, she remembered, sud- 
denly blushing again. Yet she could not help 
feeling a little bashful pride in her handiwork. 
She even held it up and looked at it critically, 
with her curly head in its quaint little nightcap 
on one side, — like a bird listening to its own 
song, — before putting the garment back in the 
basket exactly where she had found it, as a mea- 
sure of precaution against Merica’s observing 
290 


An Embarrassing Accident 

any change and gossiping about it. Every care 
must be taken on Doris’s account. And then 
this being secure, Miss Judy blew out the candle 
and stole like a shadow back to her place by her 
sleeping sister, and lay down with a last sigh of 
relief ; feeling to have done the best she could 
for her, for Doris, and for Lynn. She did not 
think of herself. 

With her mind thus temporarily at rest, she 
soon fell asleep and dreamed a radiant vision 
of Doris. There was some new and wondrous 
glory around the girl’s beautiful head, but Miss 
Judy could not make out what it was, though 
-she gazed through the sweet mist of her soft 
dream with all her loving heart in her eager 
eyes. There also seemed to be some wonder- 
ful little white thing in Doris’s lovely arms, rest- 
ing on her breast as a bud rests against a rose; 
and as the light shone brighter and brighter 
over the rose-clouds of the silvery dream, Miss 
Judy saw that the rays about the girl’s head 
were the aureole of motherhood. 

“ How strange our dreams are,” she said to 
Miss Sophia, smiling and blushing, while they 
were engaged in the usual polite conversation 
over their frugal breakfast. “We dream of 
things we never thought of.” 

“Just so, sister Judy,” responded Miss 
Sophia, who never dreamt at all unless she 
had the nightmare. 

But the feeling of causeless happiness with 
which Miss Judy awakened on that morning 
passed by degrees into a renewed sense of un- 
291 


Oldfield 


easiness. The sound of Merica’s irons bang- 
ing in the kitchen appeared to arouse scruples 
which had merely slumbered through the night. 
Was it, after all, ever right to do wrong to one 
person in order to benefit another, even though 
the injured might never know of the injury.? 
So she wondered in new alarm. It was the 
first time in Miss Judy’s simple, gentle, un- 
selfish life that she had been fronted by this 
common question, which fronts most of us 
sooner or later and more or less often ; and she 
knew even less how to meet it than do those who 
meet it more frequently. Deeply troubled, hope- 
lessly perplexed, she silently debated the right 
and the wrong of what she had done and was 
doing, through all the long hours of that peace- 
ful summer day. It would have comforted her 
greatly to have asked Miss Sophia’s advice, but 
she felt that any knowledge of the accident, 
however remote, must be distressing, and she 
still spared her in this as in everything else. 

“ Don’t you think, sister Sophia, that many 
of poor Becky’s mistakes came from not know- 
ing just what was right ? It isn’t always easy 
for any of us to tell. We can’t be so much to 
blame — when we are unable to see our way,” 
she said, after a long silence, hanging wistfully 
upon Miss Sophia’s reply. 

“ Just so, sister Judy,” responded Miss Sophia, 
with such decisive firmness as made Miss Judy 
feel for the moment that there could be no un- 
certainty ; that it surely must be as Miss Sophia 
said. 


292 


An Embarrassing Accident 


But the sight of Doris and Lynn strolling by 
on their daily walk set the balance wavering 
again. She felt the constraint in her own 
manner while she chatted with them over the 
gate. She s^w the wondering and somewhat 
anxious gazd which Doris fixed upon her, and 
she tried to laugh and speak naturally. But in 
spite of all that she could do, the uneasy sense 
of wrong-doing grew steadily. She had not 
before fully realized how fine the young man’s 
linen was — till she guiltily regarded it over the 
gate. Its very fineness and the number of its 
tucks filled her with a conviction of guilt to- 
ward him. She was strongly tempted to call 
the young couple back and make a clean breast 
of it. Then the fear of some possible humili- 
ation of Doris held her from it. So that she 
went on, sorely troubled, still turning the matter 
this way and that, till a sudden thought gave 
her a fresh shock of fear. When the young 
man saw the darned place, as he was bound 
to do some time or other, he would be sure to 
think it Merica’s doing. There could be no 
two sides to the right or wrong of allowing 
that to happen. Quite in a panic now, fairly 
driven into a corner, from which there was no 
escape. Miss Judy sprang up, and rushed out to 
stop the doctor, who chanced to be passing at 
that very moment. 

He got down from his horse and came up to 
the fence, throwing the bridle over his arm, 
always willing and glad to have a word with 
Miss Judy, no matter how weary he might be. 
293 


Oldfield 


He saw at once that she was deeply agitated, 
and that her blue eyes were full of tears. A 
country doctor of the noblest type — as this 
one was — is the tower of strength on which 
many a community leans. He touches most of 
the phases of life, perhaps ; certainly he cor/.es 
in contact with every phase of his own environ- 
ment. He is, therefore, seldom to be taken 
completely by surprise, however strange a story 
he may hear. Yet Dr. Alexander now looked 
at Miss Judy for a moment in utter bewilder- 
ment after she had poured out hers; his thoughts 
— astonishment, amusement, sympathy, under- 
standing, and, above all, affection — coming out 
by turns on his rugged, open face, like rough 
writing on parchment. 

“ God bless my soul ! ” he said. “ Who ever 
heard of such a thing! My dear, dear little 
lady! Why, you’d do that young jackanapes 
the honor of his life if you burnt his shirt off 
his back ! ” 

Miss Judy blushed and showed how shocked 
she was at such loud and indelicate mention of 
such an intimate article of clothing. 

“ But I am really in great trouble,” she urged 
gently, her eyes filling again. “ If you would 
only tell Lynn, doctor. It seems an indelicate 
thing for a lady to speak of to a gentleman. If 
you would only break it to him, and explain to 
him how it happened, and that Merica was not 
to blame — and — and that Doris knew noth- 
ing — nothing in the world — about Merica’s 
business.” 

294 


An Embarrassing Accident 

“ Of course I’ll tell him,” the doctor agreed 
heartily. “ I’ll tell him every word that you’ve 
told me,” he said, mounting his tired old horse, 
which was almost as tired as he was himself. 
“ And let the young rascal so much as crack a 
single smile, if he dares ; ” the doctor added to 
himself, as he rode off, looking back and carry- 
ing his shabby hat in his big hand, as long as 
he could see the quaint, pathetic little figure 
standing at the gate. 


29s 


XIX 


INVOKING THE LAW 

That night the little lady slept the sweet 
sleep of a tender conscience, set wholly at rest 
by a full confession. Old lady Gordon also 
rested well, after having taken some drops out 
of the bag hanging at the head of her bed, thus 
settling an uncommonly hearty supper. So 
that neither of the ladies either heard or 
dreamed of a drama which was being enacted 
that same night under the dark of the moon, 
and which threatened to turn into a tragedy 
with the light of the next morning. 

It was true — as has been said before — that 
old lady Gordon had known all along of the 
trouble brewing between her own cook and 
Miss Judy’s maid of all work. She had 
also observed the growing fierceness of their 
rivalry for the heart and hand of her gardener 
and coachman, Enoch Cotton, but she had 
not, even yet, thought of interfering, since the 
affair had progressed without the slightest inter- 
ference with her own comfort. She had merely 
laughed a little, as she always did at any candid 
display of the weakness of human nature; 
though she had incidentally given Eunice a 
characteristic word of advice. 

296 


Invoking the Law 

“ Don’t make any more of a fool of yourself 
than you can help, Eunice,” old lady Gordon 
said, with careless scorn. “You’re going about 
this matter in the wrong way. Stop all this 
foolery, all this quarrelling and fighting, and 
stop it now — right off the reel, too. And I’ll 
give you a big red feather for your hat. One 
red feather is worth more than any number of 
fights, — for getting a man back.” 

Eunice thanked her and accepted the present 
in dignified silence, but without saying what 
she herself thought of it as an antidote for 
man’s inconstancy to -woman, and her mistress 
had no means of knowing whether she ever 
really tried it or not. In fact, the whole matter 
passed out of old lady Gordon’s mind as an 
unimportant incident which had amused her for 
a moment. And there was nothing to recall it, 
the warning which she had let fall having made 
Eunice more than ever cautious in keeping out 
of her mistress’s sight all sign or sound of what 
was going on. 

Thus it was that the danger grew quietly and 
in darkness, utterly unknown to everybody ex- 
cept the three dusky persons most closely con- 
cerned. It had long been unsafe for Merica to 
come into Eunice’s kitchen, and it now be- 
came dangerous for her even to venture inside 
the back gate, when coming for the young 
master’s clothes or taking them home. Eunice 
was the very soul of frankness with all save 
her mistress, the only human being of whom 
she ever stood in awe. She accordingly made 
297 


Oldfield 


no sort of mystery of her intentions to any one 
else ; on the contrary, she told Enoch Cotton, 
in the plainest language at her command, just 
what she meant to do ; — 

“ Ef ever dat reg’lar ebo darst set her hoof 
over dat doo’ sill agin ! ” 

And Enoch knew that she meant what she 
said, and that she would do it, whatever it was. 
The only doubt was as to the meaning of “ ebo.” 
The term may have been merely an abbrevia- 
tion of ebony and nothing worse than a slur 
upon Merica’s complexion. And yet it can 
hardly have been anything quite so simple and 
harmless, if only for the reason that Eunice 
was the blacker of the two rivals — if there be 
degrees in blackness; and, moreover, Eunice’s 
way of using the word really made it sound like 
the very worst thing that one colored person 
could possibly say against another. At any rate, 
Enoch Cotton felt that the crisis was come, and 
he warned Merica, as any honorable man — re- 
gardless of the color of his skin — stands bound 
to guard, so far as he can, the girl whom he 
means to marry in the uncertain event of his 
being able to escape the widow who means to 
marry him. Merica was a little frightened at 
first, and she readily agreed to Enoch Cot- 
ton’s elaborate plan of fetching the young 
master’s clothes to the althaea hedge every 
Monday morning at sunup, and of handing 
them to her there over the fence, shielded from 
Eunice’s argus eyes by the thick dusty foliage 
and the dull purple flowers. The girl also con- 
298 


Invoking the Law 

sented to her lover’s waiting at the hedge every 
Tuesday evening at sundown to take the clothes 
when she fetched them back and handed them 
to him, under shelter of the leafy screen. Eu- 
nice saw Enoch Cotton going and coming, and 
knew full well what these manoeuvres meant; 
but the althaea hedge stood directly in front of 
her mistress’s window, so that Eunice could only 
bide her time, in masterly inactivity, bound hand 
and foot to the burning rack of jealousy. Most 
bitterly trying of all was the fact that at night 
— and every night — while she was still busy 
in ministering to her mistress’s wants, Enoch 
Cotton nearly always disappeared, and, try 
as she would, she could not learn whither he 
went. 

In the rear of Miss Judy’s garden, close to a 
secluded corner, was a half-leaning, half-fallen 
heap of butter-bean poles, rankly covered with 
vines. That little lady called it a bower, and 
thought it very pretty indeed. She had been 
somewhat disappointed at first when her butter- 
beans ran all to vines and did not bear at all. 
She had expected a good deal of those butter- 
beans ; they had been so nice and fat and white 
when she planted them, and they had doubled 
out of the earth in such thick loops of luscious 
whiteness when they first came up. She had in- 
deed told Miss Sophia that she thought there 
would be enough butter-beans to exchange for 
two (and maybe three) pairs of stockings, which 
Miss Sophia had needed for some time ; possibly 
there might be so many that she herself could 
299 


Oldfield 


have a pair. But when the vines utterly failed 
to bear, and did nothing but riot in rank and 
tangled greenness over the bending, falling 
poles. Miss Judy consoled Miss Sophia and com- 
forted herself by observing how very pretty and 
romantic the bower was. And when she ob- 
served, later in the summer, that Merica had 
formed a habit of going to sit in the bower 
every night, as soon as the day’s work was 
done, she was quite consoled. 

“ Sitting there all alone must surely tame her 
in a measure, poor thing,” Miss Judy said to 
Miss Sophia. “ It would benefit all of us to 
have more time for quiet reflection. Think 
of the difference it must have made to Becky if 
she hadn’t been so driven.” 

Accordingly Miss J udy was delicately careful 
to keep away from the bower, for fear of disturb- 
ing Merica’s reflections. Eunice had never 
approached it nor even suspected its existence, 
thinking, when she noticed it at all, that the 
green tangle of vines was a mere neglected heap 
of butter-bean poles. Her ceaseless, fruitless 
search had heretofore always been turned toward 
the dark windows of Merica’s deserted kitchen 
and cabin. And thus it was that the girl in com- 
parative safety awaited her lover’s coming night 
after night, under the dark of the moon or after 
its going down, as the savage women of her tribe 
must have awaited their warrior lovers in the 
deepest jungles of Africa. Nevertheless, Mer- 
ica’s heart was the heart of her*feminine type all 
the world over, within and without civilization. 

300 


Invoking the Law 

With her, as with all her kind, to love and be 
loved was not enough; the other woman must see 
and know, before her triumph could be entirely 
complete. In vain Enoch Cotton pleaded and 
protested, and even tried again to frighten her. 
Every word that he uttered only made her the 
more determined to parade her victory openly, 
in utter disdain of all restraint, in unbounded 
contempt of all concealment. What was there 
for her to be afraid oi} she demanded. Was 
she not younger than Eunice and better-looking 
and several shades lighter in color? And was 
not her hair ever so much straighter than Eu- 
nice’s, when freshly combed out on a Sunday, 
after being tightly plaited in very small plaits 
and carefully wrapped with string through the 
whole week? Finally, she and her lover came 
so close to a violent quarrel that he dared not 
say anything more; and although Merica ceased 
urging the point, she was fully resolved to over- 
throw the screen of the althaea hedge, to scorn 
its protection, at the earliest opportunity. This 
came sooner than she hoped for, on the evening 
following the accident when the fatal spark had 
fallen upon the wash-kettle’s biggest, dryest 
bubble. Enoch, gravely alarmed, was waiting 
as usual in the shelter of the althaea hedge, but 
she passed him boldly, leaving him trembling 
with fear and gray with terror ; and, marching 
fearlessly up to the kitchen door with a chal- 
lenging giggle, she thrust the basket of clean 
clothes through it and under Eunice’s very nose. 
Then she turned deliberately and flaunted off, 

301 


Oldfiela 


with a loud laugh of scornful, mocking defi' 
ance. 

For an instant the black widow was daunted, 
overwhelmed, dumfounded, utterly routed, by 
the brown girl’s unexpected and brazen audacity. 
She could do nothing at first but stand glaring 
after her in dumb, powerless fury. Enoch had 
disappeared as though he had sunk into the 
earth; as more self-possessed and more coura- 
geous men have done under similar circum- 
stances. Eunice, thus left alone, could only 
gather her self-possession gradually, as best she 
could, and try to think, and think, and think. 
She still kept perfectly quiet; there was not one 
outward sign of the turmoil of her fierce spirit. 
She thought and waited till night came on, and 
until her mistress had gone to bed, and even 
until she felt sure that old lady Gordon was 
sound asleep. And then, led by the blind in- 
stinct which leads the wild animal through the 
trackless forest in search of its mate, Eunice 
stealthily opened the door of her solitary cabin, 
and noiselessly went forth. She crossed the 
shadowed orchard through the soundless dark- 
ness, a black and terrible shape of vengeance, 
and crept softly, her bare, heavy feet padding 
like the paws of a tiger, on and on, straight to 
the bower. 

What happened then only the rivals ever 
knew. Enoch Cotton himself did not know. 
He fled at the first onslaught, as braver and 
whiter men have done under the same desper- 
ate and hopeless conditions; he — and they — 
302 


Invoking the Law 

could do nothing else ; could not prevent the 
conflict, and could not take part. Enoch could 
only take refuge in instantaneous and wordless 
flight. 

Neither Eunice nor Merica had ever a word 
to say of what transpired after Enoch was gone 
and they were left alone to have their wild, 
furious will of each other. The wrecked bower, 
of which hardly one pole remained upon another 
or one vine clung untorn from the others, silently 
told a part of the story. Eunice’s face looked like 
a red map of darkest Africa, and Merica’s face 
was much mottled by deep blue bruises; Eunice 
limped about her work on the following morn- 
ing, and Merica cooked breakfast with one hand, 
having the other in a sling. And still, oddly 
enough, neither Eunice nor Merica bore herself 
quite as the victorious nor yet quite as the van- 
quished. There was, in truth, an air of tense un- 
certainty on both sides. Nowadays, everybody 
would know what was to follow under such cir- 
cumstances; both sides nowadays would make 
instantaneous and vociferous appeal to the law 
as soon as the court was open. But things were 
different then, and this special case was pecul- 
iarly complicated. Eunice was a slave and had 
consequently no clearly discernible individual 
rights or privileges under the law. Merica on 
the other hand was free, and this fact, while plac- 
ing her socially far beneath Eunice, gave her, 
nevertheless, certain rights before the courts 
which her rival as a slave could not enjoy. Ac- 
cordingly it was with pride and satisfaction un- 
303 


Oldfield 


speakable that Merica set out, unobserved, soon 
after breakfast, to do what Eunice fully expected 
her to do, which was, to swear out a warrant for 
Eunice’s arrest. This legal formula was, how- 
ever, known to Eunice and to Merica, as it is 
known to most litigants of their race to-day, as 
a “ have-his-carcass,” which sounds to be a much 
larger and a much graver thing. Having, then, 
seen this document safe in the constable’s hand, 
and having been duly assured of its prompt ser- 
vice, Merica went home as quietly as she had 
come away, and slid unseen through a hole in 
the fence, soothed by the completeness of the 
legal victory which she foresaw, and which could 
not fail to make her the admired and envied 
of all her race, which then found — as it still 
finds — a strange distinction in any sort of 
legal recognition, either good or bad. 

The officer nevertheless took his own time 
in serving the warrant. It was not the Oldfield 
way to hurry over the doing of anything. More- 
over, he had, perhaps, had a rather wide expe- 
rience of colored quarrels, notwithstanding the 
fact that they were brought into court much more 
rarely at that period than they have been since. 
And then, no one, however daring or energetic, 
ever hastened under any circumstances to inter- 
fere with the old lady Gordon’s affairs. Was it 
not known — as has been related — that when 
Alvarado himself dashed along the big road 
and everybody else drove into the fence-corner 
till he went by, old lady Gordon always kept 
straight along the middle of the big road, and 
304 


I 


Invoking the Law 

it was Alvarado that went round. Bearing this 
recollection in mind, the constable strolled very 
slowly down the highway toward the Gordon 
place, and he was glad to catch sight of Eunice 
in the garden, gathering vegetables for dinner. 
It was better than finding her nearer her mis- 
tress. He laid his hands on the top of the garden 
fence and swung himself over the pickets. 

“ Good morning, Eunice,” he said, walking 
toward her between the tall rows of yellow- 
flowering okra, from which she was picking 
tender green pods, for a delicious soup which 
only herself knew the recipe for. 

“ Good morning, Mr. Jim,” responded Eunice, 
calmly. She knew at once what he had come 
for. There was a nice distinction in her call- 
ing him “ Mr. J im,” rather than “ Marse J im,” 
a subtle social distinction which was quite as 
clear to the constable as to herself, and one 
which he did not like. 

“ I’ve got a warrant here for your arrest for 
attempted murder,” he accordingly said some- 
what less mildly. “ You’ll have to come along 
with me to jail.” 

“Yes, sir,” answered Eunice, respectfully, but 
adding calmly, as if stating an accepted and un- 
alterable fact : “ Yes, sir, but in course I’ll have to 
ask Miss Frances first. I can’t stop a-gather- 
ing her vegetables while the dew’s on ’em — 
lessen she say so. You know that, Mr. Jim, 
just as well as I do. Miss Frances’s vegetables 
ain’t to be left a-layin’ round to swivel in the 
sun — no, sir, they ain’t ! ” 

X 30s 


Oldfield 


The officer hesitated ; he took off h’ls rough 
straw hat, and looked for a moment as if he 
meant to scratch his head. But remembering 
the dignity of office, he fanned himself instead. 
“Well, come on up to the house, then, and I’ll 
speak to your mistress,” he said, with more 
composure than he felt. 

They turned toward the house, the officer 
leading the way, and Eunice walking in her 
proper place behind him, carrying in her large, 
clean, white apron the okra, the beets, the 
cucumbers, and tomatoes, and all the other 
fresh and good, green and red things which she 
had already gathered for the daily noontide 
feast. 

Old lady Gordon’s keen eyes caught a glimpse 
of the constable and the cook a long way off ; 
and she hailed them sharply as soon as they were 
within hearing : “ What’s this ? What are you 
doing, Eunice.? What are jyou here for, Jim, 
at this time of day ? ” 

The officer, a good-looking, good-humored 
young giant, bared his head with an em- 
barrassed smile. He made a brief explanation, 
turning his hat in his awkward hands, and rest- 
ing his huge bulk first on one foot and then 
on the other. 

Old lady Gordon hardly allowed him to 
finish what he found to say, which was very 
little. “ Now, what’s the use of your telling 
me any such nonsense as that, Jim Slocum.? 
You know I’m not going to let you come here, 
interfering with my cook’s getting my dinner.” 

306 











e 


yv'?e/'j2zzr . 




1 



. t 


I 


■ 

J 


■i 


Invoking the Law 

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jim, deferentially. “ I do 
hate to inconvenience you, ma’am. But you see, 
ma’am, there’s the law and here’s the warrant. 
I’m bound to do what the law requires — I’ll 
have to serve it.” 

“ Indeed, you won’t do anything of the kind ! 
Who ever heard of such impudence ! ” exclaimed 
old lady Gordon. “The very idea! Taking 
my cook away from getting my dinner to lock 
her up in jail! Upon my word, Jim Slocum, 
I thought you had some sense. But I’m not 
going to allow you to annoy me or get me 
stirred up on a warm morning like this. I’m 
not even going to discuss the matter. Just you 
run along now, Jim, that’s a good fellow, and 
let Eunice alone — she’s busy — and don’t 
bother me any more.” 

She settled herself back in her wide, low 
chair, and began to wave the turkey-wing fan 
with one hand, turning the leaves of her novel 
with the other. 

“ But you see, ma’am, it’s a mighty grave 
charge, attempted murder, — the state — ” 

“ Grave fiddlesticks ! ” retorted old lady Gor- 
don, looking up from her novel with real fire 
blazing now in her fine dark eyes. “ The 
state ! ” with infinite scorn. “ What difference 
would it make to me if it were the United 
States ? I tell you I won’t have another 
word ! ” 

Her raised voice, the lower tone of the offi- 
cer’s mild, but firm, persistence, the hurried 
gathering and smothered whispering of the ser- 
307 


Oldfield 


vants around the windows and doors, all these 
combined had finally attracted the attention of 
Lynn Gordon, who was absorbed in reading 
in his own room overhead, and he now came 
hurrying downstairs. Entering his grand- 
mother’s room, he looked in surprise at the 
group which he found there; at her, at the 
constable, and lastly at Eunice, who had stood 
quietly by throughout the whole controversy 
with the manner of a coolly disinterested spec- 
tator. The officer turned eagerly to Lynn with 
the relief that every man feels upon the entrance 
of another man into a difficult business trans- 
action with women. 

“ Maybe you can persuade your grandmother 
to let Eunice go,” the constable said, addressing 
him, when a few words had made the matter 
clear to Lynn. “ It is really the quickest way 
to get her cook back. The county judge is in 
town ; I saw him tying his horse to the tavern 
hitching-post as I passed coming down here. 
He’d hurry up the case and get it over in no 
time to accommodate your grandma, being as 
they’re kinder kin — him and your grandma’s 
folks.” 

“ Mr. Slocum is right, grandmother. That 
is certainly the quickest way, and the easiest,” 
Lynn said. “ Let Eunice go and I’ll defend 
her; I’ll take her as my first case, — shall I ? ” 
he added smilingly, looking at old lady Gordon. 

“ I don’t care what any of you do, so long as 
you let me alone and have Eunice back here in 
time to get my dinner. What have you been 
308 


Invoking the Law 

op to, anyway ? ” she said, suddenly turning to 
Eunice as if the nature of the charge had just 
occurred to her for the first time. “ Well, you’d 
better be back in plenty of time to boil that 
blackberry roll, that’s all I’ve got to say to you. 
Lynn, send somebody to tell Davy, — - that’s the 
judge, Judge Thompson, — to tell Davy Thomp- 
son that I would be much obliged if he would 
go to the court-house at once and get this bother 
over, so that Eunice may be back within an 
hour. Please ask him to take the trouble to 
hurry ; tell him I asked it. Send Enoch Cotton 
• — where is Enoch, anyway ? ” she said, glancing 
over the assemblage of black masks crowding 
the windows and doors. 

Enoch — naturally enough — was not to be 
found then nor for hours afterward, but another 
servant was despatched running in his stead ; and 
then the procession moved briskly out through 
the 'side gate and on up the big road toward the 
court-house. Eunice walked behind the officer 
as manners required, but there was nothing 
abject in her carriage. She held her head high, 
feeling glad that she happened to be wearing her 
gayest bandanna head-handkerchief and that her 
white apron was still spotlessly clean. Hers was 
an imposing figure, and she knew it, and conse- 
quently bore herself with dignified pride. Her 
friends, too, began to flock around her as the 
procession advanced, thus swelling the crowd ; 
and the white people living along the big road 
came to the doors and windows of their houses 
to see what was going on. 

309 


Oldfield 


From the opposite direction approached a 
much larger and longer procession, headed by 
Merica, fairly flamboyant in an ecstasy of tri- 
umph, and tailed by dusky ragged figures, some 
of them little black children, trailing in the 
distance, indistinct as a smoky antique frieze. 
Merica’s forces largely outnumbered Eunice’s, 
as the attacking army nearly always outnum- 
bers the defending force. Merica came march- 
ing at the very forefront, as if to the throb of 
inaudible drums and to the waving of invisible 
banners. Eunice trod more slowly, as the gar- 
rison goes cautiously to man the walls. 

There was one tense, dangerous moment 
when the opposing forces met at the court- 
house steps; but the judge, the prosecuting 
attorney, and the prisoner’s counsel chanced, 
luckily, to arrive at the same instant, so that, 
owing to their restraining presence, the danger 
passed with no greater violence than an ex- 
change of threatening glances between the 
contending parties. Side by side the furious 
factions crowded into the small court-room, and 
straightway the examining trial of Eunice for 
attempted murder was then and there begun, 
without an instant’s delay. 

And yet everything was done decently and 
in order. It was a complete surprise to the de- 
fence to find that the assault which had taken 
place in the butter-bean bower was entirely 
ignored in the indictment. The charge was 
that Eunice had put poison in the well from 
which Merica drew water, thereby attempting to 
310 


Invoking the Law 

kill, to murder, and to do deadly harm etc., to the 
plaintiff. The prosecuting witness testified that 
she had heard a noise about daylight; that on 
going to the well she had found an empty box, 
which she was certain had contained rat-poison, 
lying beside it ; and that a white powder which 
she was mortally sure was the rat-poison itself 
— and nothing else — was plainly to be seen 
floating on the surface of the water. Such was 
the case made out by the prosecution. It was 
not at all what the defence was prepared for, but 
the prisoner’s counsel showed himself to be a 
person of resources upon sudden demand. He 
readily admitted that the prosecuting witness 
might have heard a noise about daylight. 
There were, as he had himself observed, a great 
many cats in that part of the village. Also he 
admitted with equal readiness that she might 
have found an empty box which had once con- 
tained a rat-poison. He pointed out the fact 
that this particular variety of rat-poison was in 
such general use in Oldfield, — where rat-poison 
was one of the necessities of life, not merely one 
of its luxuries, — that the empty boxes which had 
contained it were to be found almost anywhere. 
As for the alleged poison itself, which a notori- 
ously untruthful and untrustworthy witness had 
just testified to seeing still afloat on the surface 
of the water in the well, after the acknowledged 
lapse of several hours — the court could judge 
the worth of that evidence without any assist- 
ance from the defence. 

Here Mr. Pettus unexpectedly appeared in 


Oldfield 


the court-room. He kept the rat-poison, as he 
kept everything in daily Oldfield demand, and 
he had been hurriedly summoned as an expert 
witness for the defence, and he now took the 
stand. He testified to having handled that par- 
ticular variety of rat-poison in very large quan- 
tities for many years. He claimed, on cross- 
examination, to be perfectly familiar with the 
kind of box used by the manufacturers of the 
rat-poison, and he gave it as his opinion that 
the particular box in question — the one which 
he then held in his hand, and which he was 
examining minutely — had been used for several 
other purposes, and harmless ones, apparently, 
since being emptied of its original deadly con- 
tents. He called the attention of the court to 
the fact that a particle of sugar still adhered to 
one corner, while a grain of coffee still lingered 
in another corner. Finally, when the prisoner’s 
counsel was quite ready for the grand stroke, 
he allowed the witness — who was an amateur 
chemist in the line of his business — to testify 
from his own personal knowledge of the rat- 
poison that it dissolved instantly upon coming 
in contact with water. 

“ And yet, your Honor, the prosecution rests 
its case upon the testimony of an ignorant, vin- 
dictive savage, who swears — who solemnly testi- 
fies under oath, your Honor — that she saw this 
identical poison, and no other, floating on the 
surface of the water in the well several hours 
after she claims to have heard a noise ; that it 
was there, plainly to be seen, several hours after 

312 


Invoking the Law 

my ^nnocent client is known to have been at 
work in her mistress’s kitchen and was seen in 
her mistress’s garden, openly and constantly in 
view of the whole community. I can summon 
any number of unimpeachable witnesses — ” 

“ The declaration is dismissed. The com- 
plaint is denied for lack of evidence,” said the 
judge, as seriously as possible. “ Call the next 
case.” 

“ You may go home now, Eunice,” said Lynn, 
smiling. 

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” said Eunice, 
calm as ever, and deliberately dropping a 
clumsy courtesy. 

She courtesied still more clumsily to the 
court and to Mr. Pettus, and to all the white 
persons present, and then she turned slowly 
and ponderously, like some large and heavy 
royal personage, and she cast openly a high 
glance of infinite scorn over the humbled heads 
of her enemies. They might flock like coal- 
black crows as much as they had a mind to, 
she remarked in the dialect which they best 
understood ; they were no more to her than the 
dust of the big road which she had “ trompled 
under foot.” She had white folks for her 
friends, she said triumphantly. With this sin- 
gle parting volley she went slowly and calmly 
down the court-house steps and set off home- 
ward, bearing herself with all the arrogance of 
Semiramis returning victorious to Nineveh. 

“Well, so you are back in time! No,” said 
old lady Gordon, holding up the turkey-wing 
313 


Oldfield 


fan with a restraining gesture and resuming 
her novel with a yawn, “ I don’t want to hear 
a word about it. I know well enough that you 
ought to be in the penitentiary. Go on and 
get my dinner.” 

At the other end of the village Merica, 
deeply dejected, utterly crushed, stole toward 
home close in the shelter of the fence. She was 
returning entirely alone, as the leader of a lost 
cause nearly always returns, if he return at all. 
One by one her followers had dropped away, one 
disappearing here in a back yard, another vanish- 
ing there in a wood-lot, till all were gone. De- 
sertion is the bitter hemlock of defeat that the 
vanquished are always forced to drink. The 
board was still off the fence at its farthest corner ; 
Merica had squeezed through the hole on her 
flamboyant departure, so that Miss Judy might 
not see her and prevent her going ; and she now 
dragged herself through it again on her down- 
cast coming back, and thus reached the coveted 
shelter of her own domain and was able to hide 
her diminished head wholly unobserved by her 
unsuspicious, gentle little mistress. 

“ Merica’s very quiet this morning. I haven’t 
heard her stirring,” Miss Judy said to Miss 
Sophia, as they sat placidly side by side in their 
little rocking-chairs — swaying gently — as they 
so loved to sit. They were talking, too, with 
that inexhaustible interest in one another’s con- 
versation which made their lifelong companion- 
ship the beautiful and perfect thing it was. 

“ Perhaps the poor creature is distressed over 


Invoking the Law 

the falling down of the bower. She seemed to 
be real fond of it. And how strange to think 
there could have been such a violent storm 
without a drop of rain or our hearing the 
wind. I thought at first that we might have 
the bean-poles set up again, but the poles are 
broken and the vines are actually torn up by 
the roots. Oh, yes, — going back to what we 
were discussing before I happened to think of 
the bower, — I am sure that you are quite right 
in thinking that Doris’s character has developed 
very rapidly of late. Her ideals really appear 
surprisingly well formed for so young a girl. 
And, as you say, there could hardly be any- 
thing unsettling now in her reading about the 
troubles that poor Becky went through. It can 
hardly do the dear child any harm now even to 
read about the mistakes which poor Becky made. 
For you know, sister Sophia, Becky was really 
good-hearted. You remember that Amelia 
might have gone sorrowing all her life, but for 
Becky’s being so kind-hearted.” 

Miss Judy pleaded as though Miss Sophia 
was some keen and merciless critic from whose 
stern justice she strove gently to save the inno- 
cently erring. 

“Just so, sister Judy,” responded Miss So- 
phia, so promptly, so firmly, so comprehen- 
sively, so conclusively, that Miss Judy beamed 
at her, positively radiant with admiration, and 
sighed a deep sigh of relief and satisfaction at 
having the long and sorely vexing question thus 
thoroughly disposed of at last. 

315 


XX 


THE CONFLICT BETWEEN FAITH AND LOVE 

About that time of the year an aspect of 
great, glowing beauty and a feeling of deep, 
sweet peace always comes to this beautiful, 
pastoral country. 

The long, warm days are then of the rarest 
gold, and the short, cool nights are of the purest 
silver. The ripened grain has been garnered, 
and its golden sheaves no longer tent the rich, 
broad lands. The tall, tasselling corn now flows 
free in rippling, murmuring, ever widening sil- 
very seas. The ocean of the vast tobacco fields 
rolls and rolls its mighty billows of deepening 
green into the darkening purple haze of the 
misty horizon. The wooded hillsides are now 
very still, and dark blue shadows linger all day 
among the trees — which stir scarcely a leaf — 
waiting to creep down toward the village at 
nightfall to meet the snow-white mist loitering 
over the resting meadows. The birds, too, 
are resting, half asleep in the heart of the 
ancient wood; they sing more seldom and their 
songs are sweeter and softer and come forth 
, touched with a tender melancholy. The very 
shrilling of the crickets in the long grass sounds 
less shrill, and seems to rise and fall with the 
waves of heat. The butterflies, clustering on the 
316 


The Conflict between Faith and Love 

commonest wayside weeds like tropical flowers, 
hardly move their dazzling wings of yellow 
and white, waving them as languorously as 
a flower unfurls its petals. And then — in 
those radiant days — the thistledown also softly 
spreads its pinions of gossamer silver, and, borne 
on the breath of the south breeze, it wings its 
weightless way over all the snow-masses of the 
elder bloom, and burnishes its lacelike whiteness 
into the luminous border of the veil which the 
midsummer heaven lends to the midsummer 
earth. 

The honeysuckle over Tom Watson’s window 
was thinning under the heat and bronzing under 
the drouth. Its leaves, green-yellow, drifted 
languidly down to the browning grass of the 
neglected lawn. So that there was scarcely a 
cool shadow' left to shield the wretchedness of 
the stricken man, sitting day after day in the 
spot to which destiny had chained him ; or one 
to cover the sadness of the wife, keeping her 
hopeless vigil by his side, in open view for every 
passer-by to see. It was a sight to wring any 
heart, and the Oldfield people were always kind 
to one another and always helpful — as simple, 
poor people are everywhere. But in this sad 
case there seemed no way to help, nothing that 
any one could do. No one might penetrate the 
dumb horror of the sick man’s awful gaze, strain- 
ing all the desolate day through, as long as the 
light lasted, toward some unseen and unreach- 
able thing, as a wild creature strains dumbly at 
its chain. No one could pass the silence of 
317 


Oldfield 


Anne’s reserve to share, to lessen, or even com- 
pletely to comprehend the conflict ceaselessly 
waging within the high, narrow walls of her 
spirit. 

Up to the beginning of this strife Anne’s 
heart and soul had gone more nearly abreast, 
more evenly side by side, than most women’s 
hearts and souls are able to go through life. 
The one nearly always goes before the other in 
every true woman’s breast. And the path of 
Anne’s spirit was very narrow, much narrower 
than that in which most women tread ; so that, 
at this last steep pass, there was not room for 
both to go together, and thus her heart and 
her soul were forced to strive, the one with the 
other, for the right of way. There was never 
a moment’s doubt in Anne’s single, simple, 
and most strenuous mind as to which should 
lead. Now, as always, the road between right 
and wrong lay straight, clear, and open before 
her feet. There never was the slightest danger 
of her wandering or wavering. But oh, the 
agonized wringing of her heart, the almost 
unendurable travail of her soul — in this death 
struggle for her husband’s salvation! And 
yet she suffered the anguish unflinchingly, her 
very love forbidding her conscience to yield, to 
barter the hope of the life everlasting for the 
relief of a few broken years. And every day the 
conflict grew fiercer as her husband’s growing 
strength increased his piteously powerless resist- 
ance to restraint, and fed the flame of his desire 
for cards, now as strong as any ruling passion 


The Conflict between Faith and Love 

ever was in death. Impassive as Anne was by 
nature, she used sometimes to wonder if she 
would be able to bear it any longer and live. 
Her heart was breaking, her soul was almost at 
bay, so desperate was the strife between the two. 

It is one of life’s cruel ironies that the deepest 
feeling must often find trival and even absurd 
expression. In poor Anne’s first blind casting 
about for something to divert her husband’s 
thoughts, in her first futile trying to remember 
what he used to like, — and she had known very 
little of his tastes in the days of his strength, — 
the recollection of seeing him read the county 
newspaper, which was published weekly in a 
neighboring town, came suddenly out of the 
mists of her memory. She sent for the paper 
and tried to read it to him, beginning at the 
top line of the first column and going straight 
through to the last line on the last page, fearing 
lest she might miss the article which he most 
wanted to hear. But Anne was not a good 
reader, and a clouded mind and a racked body 
do not make a patient listener. Tom gave no 
sign and he did not try to speak ; but Anne 
saw his miserable, unresting eyes wander away 
to the far-off purpled hills, beyond which lay the 
free, bright world ; and his thoughts — but who 
dare wonder whither his thoughts wandered .? 

After the failure in the reading of the news- 
paper, Anne turned to books. There were no 
new books in Oldfield, had poor Anne known 
the new from the old, and there were few of 
any kind. Miss Judy had more than any one 
319 


Oldfield 


else, and she was eager in offering all that had 
belonged to her father, as well as the handful of 
more recent ones gathered by her own simple 
tastes ; and these last she urged upon Anne as 
being lighter and more cheerful, and conse- 
quently more suited to the cheering of an 
invalid. She was quite sure, so she said, smil- 
ing to hearten Anne, that Tom would like to 
hear about Becky; he had always liked lively, 
good-hearted people — like himself. But Anne 
instinctively chose the major’s books instead, 
shrinking from all lightness as unsuited to her 
husband’s need, and believing, as a woman of 
her type usually believes, that a man is most 
interested in what she herself least understands. 

When the reading of the dry old books had 
failed even more completely, if possible, than 
the reading of the newspaper, Anne tried to 
talk to her husband ; and that was the hardest 
of all. She had always been a silent woman, 
well named “ still-tongued ” ; and now that her 
sad heart lay in her bosom like lead, she found 
less and less to say, so that this last attempt was 
the most complete and the saddest of her many 
repeated defeats. It was then, when at the end 
of her own resources, that she held to Sidney’s 
hand, and asked with her appealing eyes for 
the help which she knew not how to beg with 
her lips. After this Sidney went every day to 
see Tom, and told him, as amusingly as she 
could tell anything, of everything that was going 
on, no matter whether he listened or not. And 
she also sent Doris, who went often (taking 
320 


The Conflict between Faith and Love 

Miss Judy’s guitar at that little lady’s sugges- 
tion) to sing to the invalid, and who was careful 
to choose her gayest songs and to play nothing 
less cheerful than the Spanish fandango ; and 
it really seemed, once in a while, as if a light 
came into the sick man’s darkened gaze as it 
rested upon the girl as she tinkled the old 
guitar, with the broad blue ribbon falling 
around her beautiful shoulders. 

The whole village was, in truth, unwearying 
in its kindness all the long days, through all 
those long months; but there were, neverthe- 
less, the lonely hours of the endless nights to 
be passed alone, when the desperate husband 
and the despairing wife dumbly faced the 
appalling future, — a burning, unlighted, empty 
desert, — stretching perhaps through many ter- 
rible years. And even then Anne stood firm, 
with her sad, steady eyes ever on the white 
heights which she saw beyond the black gulf, 
wherein she strove perpetually with the powers 
of darkness for her husband’s soul. 

She never left him now for a moment, night 
or day, except when there was preaching in her 
own church and her faith required the “ break- 
ing of bread ” ; and at rare long intervals to go 
to prayer-meeting, when she felt her strength 
failing and hoped to find in the prayers of others 
new strength for her own ceaseless petitions. 
One night of midsummer, when the bell began 
to ring for prayer-meeting, she felt that she must 
go. She accordingly arose — reluctantly as she 
always left him — and went into the bedroom 
321 


Oldfield 


and put on her quakerish bonnet. Then she 
came back and stood before her husband, seek- 
ing wistfully to do something more for his 
comfort before leaving him, as she never forgot 
to try to do. She turned the cushions at his back 
to make them softer, and moved the pillows be- 
hind his head so that it might rest easier, and 
straightened the cover over his powerless knees. 
These poor things, which she always did, were 
all that she ever could do. She would return 
soon, as soon as she could, she said, as she 
always said, bending down to press her pale lips 
to his scarred forehead. At the gate she stopped 
and lingered, looking back, as she always looked, 
sorely loath still to leave him even for an hour 
of uplifting prayer. 

Night was near. The last red gold of the 
sunset had paled from the highest, farthest 
hilltop, where the graveyard lay. The tomb- 
stones — the new white ones that stood so 
straight, the older gray ones that leaned, the 
oldest brown ones that had fallen — all were 
dim now in the soft glory of the afterglow, as 
many of the cold, hard things of this world are 
softened by the tender light from the world 
above. The dusk was already creeping down 
the darkling arches of the wooded hillsides. 
Mists were already arising from the low-lying 
meadows, trailing long white cloud-fleeces, all 
starred with fireflies, thus making a new heaven 
of the old earth. 

Through the gloaming and the stillness 
Anne’s lonely figure went steadily, swiftly on- 

322 


The Conflict between Faith and Love 

ward toward the church. Lynn Gordon noted 
the tense paleness and the strange exaltation 
of her still face, when he met and passed her 
on the big road, faint as the light was, and the 
sight of it touched him, though his own mind 
was lightly at peace and his own heart was over- 
flowing with thoughtless happiness. The im- 
pression of suffering that her face had given 
him was still in his mind when he drew near 
the window beside which the sick man sat, and 
because of it, or some other motive that he did 
not stop to fathom, he suddenly stood still, and 
after a hesitating pause, and a longing glance 
toward the silver poplars, he opened the gate 
and crossed the yard and went to the window 
to speak to Tom Watson. Nothing was farther 
from his thoughts than any intent of going into 
the house — as he told the doctor afterwards 
when speaking of what followed. 

“ It was like mesmerism. I have not the 
vaguest idea of how it really happened. His 
awful eyes drew me, when I didn’t want to go. 
They dragged me into that house as if a giant 
hand had been laid upon my collar. The first 
thing that I knew the negro boy who waits on 
Watson had set out a table and put the lamp on 
it, and had laid a pack of cards between him and 
me.” The young man shuddered at the recollec- 
tion. “ I hope I may never again see anything 
like that poor wretch’s face when his palsied 
hands first touched the cards which I dealt him. 
I tried to remind myself that there couldn’t be 
any harm in such a game and that there might 
323 


Oldfield 


be some good. But to see such a passion as his 
for gambling looking out of a dead man’s face 
is a sight which I hope never to look upon again.” 

The lamplight shone far down the big road 
that night, and Anne saw it almost as soon as 
she left the meeting-house on her lonely way 
home. At the sight her heavy heart seemed to 
leap as if it would escape from its cell of pain; 
and then, faint with deadly fear, it seemed to 
fall back as though it could never beat again. 
Too near to fainting to stand, she sat down on 
the roadside, and remained without moving for a 
long time. She was all alone in the darkness, no 
one else was going her way ; and no one passed 
along the deserted thoroughfare. She knew at 
once what the streaming lamplight meant; and 
she tried to think what was best to do, now that 
the worst was come. She arose tremblingly at 
last, when she had rallied strength enough, and 
she went on feebly through the still blackness of 
the night, like a woman suddenly stricken with 
great age. She did not know that she was weep- 
ing, and the great, slow, heavy tears of the rarely 
moved fell unheeded down her white cheeks. 
The gate was open, as Lynn Gordon had left it, 
and she entered the yard noiselessly, passing the 
window like an unseen shadow and with an 
averted face. On the steps at the back of the 
house she sank down almost prone and lay 
motionless, hardly conscious, she knew not for 
how long. The heavy tears still fell silently 
and unnoticed, as the hardest rain falls without 
storm. She was trying to think, but she could 
324 


The Conflict between Faith and Love 


not ; she could do nothing but pray. And she 
prayed — praying as one having great faith does 
pray when a tidal wave from life’s troubled sea 
sweeps over a stranded soul. For Anne’s faith 
stood, even now, firm as a mighty rock anchored 
to the foundations of the earth. And through 
all the darkness and turmoil of this supreme 
spiritual stress a single ray of white light shone 
steadily as a beacon to her tossed spirit. The 
abomination had not come through any weakness 
of hers ; her faith had not yielded to her love. 

The next perfect day had worn slowly to an- 
other glorious sunset when Anne went again 
down the big road, but this time toward the 
Gordon place. Lynn saw her coming, and he 
arose from his seat on the porch, where he 
chanced to be sitting alone with his cigar, and 
went to meet her, thinking how foolish it was 
for him to be smitten at the first sight of her by 
a sense of guilt and a painful conviction of 
having done her an injury. He tried to throw 
off the feeling with a smile, as he stood holding 
open the gate for her to enter. 

There was no answering smile on Anne’s 
pale face, yet its perfect calmness and the steadi- 
ness of her clear gaze reassured him somewhat. 
Her voice also was quite calm and steady when 
she said that she could not come in to see his 
grandmother, as he invited her to do ; and after 
a momentary hesitation added that she had come 
solely to give him a message from her husband 
— one that she could not send by any one else. 
325 


Oldfield 


“ Tom has sent me to ask you will play cards 
with him again to-night,” she said deliberately, 
in a curiously level tone, as if weighing every 
word, and with her clear eyes fixed with singular 
intensity on the young man’s face. 

“ Why — of course I will — I’ll be delighted 
to,” Lynn responded eagerly, with much relief. 
He had not expected her to say anything of this 
kind. “ But, my dear Mrs. Watson, you needn’t 
have taken the trouble to come all this distance 
yourself to ask me. I should have come will- 
ingly, no matter who had brought the request. 
Mr. Watson had only to tell me when he wished 
me to come.” 

“ That is why I came. I wanted to make sure 
that you would come just the same, whether I 
asked you or not,” said Anne, still looking at him 
with her luminous clearness of gaze, the white 
light behind her eyes shining high and bright. 

“ Certainly,” he replied quickly, made uneasy 
by her look, though he knew not why and did 
not in the least understand what was in the 
mind of this quiet woman of few words. 

She stood silent for a moment, so frail, so 
pale, under the gloom of the low, dark boughs 
of the cypress tree, that she seemed more spirit 
than flesh. Then she silently turned away her 
clear eyes, in which sorrow lay heavy as stones 
at the bottom of a still crystal pool. She stood 
for a moment silently looking far over the 
shadowed fields, above which the white banners 
of mist were already afloat on the evening 
breeze. Her inscrutable gaze then wandered 

326 


The Conflict between Faith and Love 

toward the cloud mountains towering in the 
west, their snowy summits rifted by rivers of 
molten gold, and flooding the peaceful earth 
with unearthly beauty. 

“ Until I knew whether anything that I could 
say or do would make any difference — about 
your coming — I could not see my way,” she 
said, turning back, her strange eyes again look- 
ing straight into his perplexed eyes. “ Now 
that you have told me, I must do what is right 
— as nearly as I can.” 

“ I don’t understand,” faltered the young man. 
“Would you like me to come with you now — 
at once? I am quite ready.” 

“ I can’t let you — or any one — do for my 
husband what I am not willing to do for him 
myself. I can’t ask another to commit sin for 
him in my stead. If it must be done, it is I 
W'ho must do it — not any one else.” 

She spoke calmly, but with infinite sadness, 
and her pale face turned a shade paler, if it 
could be paler than it had been when she first 
appeared beneath the gloomy cypress boughs. 

The young man was startled, bewildered, 
touched. He no longer felt like smiling at 
Anne’s taking the matter seriously; there was 
no longer anything absurd in her attitude. His 
impulsive heart, always quick to see and to re- 
spond to the real, the fine, and the high, filled 
now with a sudden rush of sympathy for this 
quiet woman with the white face and the spare 
speech, for all her narrow mind and her stern 
faith. 

327 


Oldfield 


But, my dear madam, you don’t know how 
to play cards, do you ? ” he protested confusedly, 
at a loss what to say or to do. 

“ No,” said Anne, with an involuntary move- 
ipent of shrinking. “But I thought — I can’t 
see my way. It is the first time. I don’t seem 
to be able to tell right from wrong. But I 
thought that if — if you would teach me — that 
is if it wouldn’t be wrong for me to ask you — 
even to do that ! ” 

“ How could it be wrong ? ” he said gently. 
“ I have never thought that there was any harm 
in card-playing merely for amusement. I will 
gladly teach you what I know, which isn’t a 
great deal, nor hard to learn.” 

“ The path is dark before my feet. I can only 
stumble on till the light be given,” murmured 
Anne, as if thinking aloud, even as though she 
were praying. 

“ Let’s go now,” said Lynn, taking a sudden 
resolution. “ If you are not yet satisfied, we 
can talk it all over as we walk along.” 

Anne assented silently; they passed out from 
beneath the shadow of the cypress tree and went 
on their way up the deserted, darkened big road, 
but neither found another word to say. The 
light of the lamp, awaiting the game on the sick 
man’s table, already shone far to meet them, and 
when its beams fell on Anne’s face Lynn turned 
his eyes away. 

But she did not falter ; she led the way through 
the gate and straight into the room where that 
awful, dumb figure sat, striving to shuffle the 

328 


The Conflict between Faith and Love 

cards with its poor palsied hands, and with the 
gambler’s terrible eagerness flaming in his eyes. 
Anne laid off her bonnet, and without speaking 
took the player’s place opposite her husband. 

Lynn was as silent as Anne herself, but he 
quietly placed himself, standing, beside her, 
thinking as he did this and glanced at her that 
the look of exaltation on Anne’s white, still face 
must have been the look that the martyrs wore 
when they entered the arena to confront the 
wild beasts. He felt awed by the solemnity of 
the scene. He hardly dared move or speak, it 
so weighed upon him, but he explained the 
rules and the terms of the game as simply and 
as briefly as he could. He never forgot the 
sudden dilation of Anne’s eyes and the dim- 
ness that followed, as though the white light 
behind them had suddenly flared high before 
going out, when he first put the cards in her 
hands and the game began. 

“You must draw — you draw to a straight 
flush. Mr. Watson stands pat,” said Lynn, in 
a hushed tone, feeling as if he were desecrating 
some holy place — starting at the sound of his 
own voice as though it sounded through a 
cathedral. 

“ I draw to a straight flush. Mr. Watson 
stands pat,” repeated Anne’s pale lips, as a pious 
soul in extremity might murmur a Latin prayer 
which it did not understand. 

“ Now you raise him,” prompted Lynn. 

“ Now I raise you,” echoed Anne. 

“ Ah, he calls you and takes the pot.” 

329 


Oldfield 


“ He calls me and takes the pot.” 

Thus begun, the game went on by surer de- 
grees through the terrible hours of the horrible 
night, till a later bedtime than Tom Watson had 
known since he had ceased to be the keeper of 
his own time. The next morning it was re- 
sumed as soon as breakfast was over, and con- 
tinued day after day and night after night. 
The teacher wearied after the first day, though 
he came oftener than he might have been ex- 
pected to come, since he was young and happy, 
and there were other and pleasanter things 
drawing him away. But Anne learned fast 
— faster, perhaps, than she had ever learned 
anything else. There are few things that the 
slowest-witted woman cannot learn when her 
whole heart and soul hang upon the learning. 
It was therefore not long before she could play 
alone, after a fashion, and from that time on 
she played ceaselessly through- every waking 
moment, stopping only for the meals that 
neither husband nor wife could eat. So that 
every morning Anne sat down to the card-table, 
silently imploring pardon for the sin which she 
was about to commit; every night she lay wearily 
down on her sleepless bed, praying for forgive- 
ness for the sin which she had committed during 
the day. And always Anne played with the 
unaltered belief — firm as her belief in the plan 
of salvation — that she staked on every game 
the relief of her husband’s body against the 
saving of his soul. 


330 






XXI 


WHAT OLDFIELD THOUGHT AND SAID 

Thus it was that all the peace and beauty 
of those glorious midsummer days brought 
neither rest nor pleasure to Anne. 

The quiet awakening of the tranquil world, 
soft as the tenderest trembling of a harp ; 
the first musical tinkling that came murmuring 
up from the misty meadows with the earliest 
stirring of the flocks and herds ; the gentle 
calling of the dumb creatures ; the aerial flute 
notes wafted down the leafy arches of the dew- 
wet woods ; the palest glory of the dawn coming 
for the perpetual refreshment of the earth ; the 
final coronation of the Day King with the mar- 
shalling of his dazzling lances through the 
royal red and gold of the hilltops, — all these 
wonders of a marvellously beautiful world were 
to Anne but the dreaded daily summons to the 
renewal of a hopeless conflict. 

It was like her never to think of sitting 
elsewhere than in the old place — at her hus- 
band’s side by the open window — after begin- 
ning to play cards. It would have been utterly 
unlike her to have thought of doing anything 
else, to have considered for a moment what 
her neighbors might think or say. For hers 
331 


Oldfield 


was a nature condemned at its creation to a 
loneliness even greater than that in which 
every soul must forever dwell apart. All her 
life she had lived as one alone on a desert 
island. Now, under this supreme anguish of 
living, the amazed gaze of the whole world, 
its approval or its disapproval, would have 
been to her — had she thought of it — no 
more than the moaning of the winter wind 
through the graveyard cedars. 

And yet, naturally enough, this utter uncon- 
sciousness upon Anne’s part did not lessen 
in the least the shock which the entire com- 
munity felt on seeing her — Anne Watson — 
of all women in all the world at the card-table 
by the open window, in view of everybody pass- 
ing along the big road ! Those who first saw 
the incredible sight could scarcely believe their 
own eyes. Those who first heard of it utterly 
refused to credit it until they had made a 
special trip up and down the big road, twice 
passing the window, in order to see and to make 
sure for themselves. And then, when there 
was no longer room for doubt or dispute, a 
sort of panic seized the good people of Oldfield. 
With this appalling backsliding of Anne Wat- 
son’s the whole religious and social fabric 
seemed suddenly going to pieces. 

Only Lynn Gordon and the doctor knew 
the truth. Lynn had not told his grand- 
mother of Anne’s visit nor of her request. His 
grandmother was not one to whom he would 
have spoken of anything which had touched him 
332 


What Oldfield Thought and Said 

keenly or moved him deeply. And he had 
even not told Doris, whom he would most 
naturally have trusted, certain of being under- 
stood, certain, too, of sympathy for Anne. A 
feeling of delicate consideration for Anne, a 
sense that she had trusted him, only because she 
could not do otherwise, that she had opened her 
reserved heart to him, who was almost a stranger, 
only because she was forced to do it, under 
terrible necessity, — all these mingled feelings 
had a part in holding him silent. To the doctor 
alone he felt that he should give a full account 
of what had taken place. But when he tried 
to tell even him, Lynn unexpectedly found it 
very hard to make Anne’s motives and posi- 
tion as clear to another person as he had felt 
them to be. He realized for the first time that 
she had somehow made him feel much more 
than she had been able to put into words. 
She had so few words — poor Anne — and the 
few that she had were meagre indeed. The 
impulsive, warm-hearted young fellow stam- 
mered, and reddened, and laughed at himself, 
in a manly embarrassment that was a pleasant 
thing to see, as he tried clumsily to put the 
matter before the doctor in its true light, and 
in a way to do justice to Anne. Fortunately 
the doctor understood at once, and might have 
understood had the young man said even less 
than he finally found to say. That friend of 
humanity had learned something of Anne’s 
character during her husband’s long illness. 
Two earnest natures, stripped for a shoulder 
333 


Oldfield 


to shoulder contest with death over a sick-bed, 
come as near, perhaps, to knowing one another 
as any two souls may ever approach. A doctor’s 
very calling, moreover, must reveal to him — as 
hardly the confessional can reveal to another 
man — the winding mazes of the simplest, sin- 
cerest woman’s conscience. 

When the doctor went home after talking 
with Lynn, he tried to show his wife that there 
was no occasion for the widespread excitement 
over this unaccountable change in Anne. He 
hoped that an off-hand word to his wife might 
have some effect in settling the swirl of gossip 
which circled the village, faster and faster, with 
Anne’s continued appearance at the card-table, 
as the continual casting of pebbles agitates a 
stagnant pool. But Mrs. Alexander, good, kind, 
charitable woman though she was, could only 
sigh and shake her head. She said that she 
had never understood Anne, but that she had 
always respected her sincerity, no matter how 
widely she herself might differ in opinion. But 
what could anybody think or say of Anne’s sin- 
cerity now The doctor’s wife cast a shocked, 
frightened, glance at the Watson house. Such 
open, flagrant backsliding really was enough to 
make the lightning strike. 

And Mrs. Alexander’s view was the one held 
by most of the Oldfield ladies, all of whom took 
the incomprehensible affair much to heart. Only 
Miss Judy and Kitty Mills saw nothing to alarm, 
nothing to wonder at, nothing in the least un- 
natural in Anne’s change of attitude. But then, 
334 


What Oldfield Thought and Said 

Miss Judy was well known to believe that every- 
body always had some praiseworthy motive for 
everything, if others were only clear-sighted 
enough to perceive it. Her pure mind was a 
flawless crystal, reflecting every ray of light from 
many exquisite prisms, but sending nothing out 
of actual darkness. And no one ever regarded 
seriously the views of Kitty Mills, who was noto- 
riously willing for every one to do precisely as 
he liked, as nearly as he could, without any ex- 
planation or any reason whatever, so that her 
opinion had the very slight value which usually 
pertains to the opinions of the easily pleased. 
All the other Oldfield ladies were too deeply 
shocked, too utterly amazed, to know what to 
think, or what to say, or what to do. They 
could only gather in solemn, excited conclave 
at one another’s houses, and discuss the situa- 
tion daily and almost hourly, with growing 
wonder and bated breath. 

Sidney was, of course, the central figure in 
this, as in all other things vital to the life of the 
village. As much at a loss for once as the 
dullest, she held nevertheless to her high esteem 
for Anne, and in canvassing the strangeness of 
the latter’s conduct from house to house, as she 
felt compelled to canvass it, she invariably spoke 
of her with great kindness, even while admitting 
that it would be hard for a Philadelphia lawyer 
to find out what Anne meant by whirling round 
like a weathercock. It is likely that Sidney took 
off her bonnet and let down her hair oftener, 
and shook it out harder, and twisted it up tighter, 
335 


Oldfield 


at this time, than at any other period of her 
entire professional career. She used, indeed, 
to stop all along the big road — anywhere — and 
hang her bonnet on the fence, while she shook 
her hair down and twisted it up again ; and her 
knitting-needles flew faster than they had ever 
done before or ever did afterward. One day, 
as she happened to be entering the doctor’s 
gate to keep an important engagement with 
Mrs. Alex^ander, she saw Miss Pettus stand- 
ing before the Watson house, gazing at the 
window, — which had now become the stage of 
a mystery play, — and not only gazing, but star- 
ing as if some dreadful sight had suddenly 
turned her to stone. Sidney called to her, but 
she did not turn or respond in any way for some 
minutes ; and when she finally joined Sidney 
and the doctor’s wife on the latter’s porch, where 
they were sitting, she was really pale from agi- 
tation and actually sputtering with excitement. 

“ Chips ! ” she gasped, sinking into a chair. 
“ Poker chips. I saw ’em with my own eyes 
and heard ’em with my own ears ! I give you 
both my sacred word as a member of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church in good standing.” 

“ Poker chips are neither here nor there,” said 
Sidney, in the lofty, judicial tone which she had 
maintained throughout the controversy. 

She eyed Miss Pettus, however, silently and a 
little severely, as she loosed several rounds of 
yarn from her big ball, and held them out and 
deliberately shook them apart at arm’s length. 
It did not please her to hear of poker chips — 
336 


What Oldfield Thought and Said 

or anything else of interest — through Miss 
Pettus or any other person. It was her own 
special and exclusive province to discover and 
distribute the news. She felt much as the 
editor of a great daily newspaper might feel if 
some casual passer-by should drop in to tell him 
of the day’s greatest public event. 

“ Poker chips ai'e neither here nor there,” she 
repeated coolly, and almost contemptuously, as 
one looking to larger things. “No matter what 
Anne Watson does, and no matter how she does 
it, there’s one thing that you may always be sure 
of. Miss Pettus, and that is — that she believes 
she is doing right.” 

“ Who said she didn’t ? ” retorted Miss Pettus. 
“ Have I said anything about the right or 
wrong of it ? I don’t care anything about the 
right or wrong of card-playing. Some folks 
think one way and some another — and they 
may go on thinking so for all me. What I do 
say is that a body ought to stick to what she 
does believe, whatever it is, no matter whether 
she’s a Methodist like me or a Christian like 
Anne.” 

“ Well — ’pon my word ! ” exclaimed Sidney, 
seeing a chance for reprisal, and furtively wink- 
ing the eye next to the doctor’s wife. “To hear 
you talk. Miss Pettus, folks would think there 
wasn’t anybody but Methodists and Christians. 
Where, pray, do the rest of us come in ? There’s 
Jane there — a Cumberland Presbyterian, dyed 
blue in the wool. Yonder’s Miss Judy, an 
Episcopalian of the highest latitude and the 
z 337 


Oldfield 


greatest longitude, and a-training Doris to be 
just like her. And here am I — a Baptist — 
a Baptist born and a Baptist bred — and a 
Whiskey Baptist at that.” 

“ If I were you, Sidney Wendall,” replied Miss 
Pettus, with offended dignity, “ I wouldn’t make 
fun of my own religion if I did make fun of 
every other earthly thing I came across. You 
know as well as I do, and as Jane here does, 
that there is no such thing as a Whiskey 
Baptist — and never was and never will be.” 

“ No such thing as a Whiskey Baptist.? ” ex- 
claimed Sidney, pretending to be wholly in 
earnest, and slyly winking again at the doctor’s 
wife. “ Then what, may I ask, would you have 
called my own father and his only brother — two 
church members in good and regular standing, 
and two as good and highly respected citizens 
as this Pennyroyal Region ever had, to boot.? 
What else could you call them, I ask you, 
’Mandy Pettus .? Didn’t they always pay their 
debts on the stroke of the town clock, and to 
a hundred cents on the dollar.? Didn’t they 
always vote the straight Democratic ticket for 
fifty years, without ever a scratch from end to 
end .? Didn’t they always get drunk on every 
county court day of their lives, and keep sober 
all the rest of the year? No Whiskey Baptists 
indeed ! ” 

“ What’s all that tirade got to do with what 
I said about Anne’s — and everybody’s — being 
what they pretend to be ? ” fumed Miss Pettus. 
'‘That’s what I said and what I’ll keep on 
338 


What Oldfield Thought and Said 

saying as long as I have the breath to speak 
my honest mind. And I’ll say it about any- 
body, no matter who, just the same. Chop- 
ping and changing till a body don’t know where 
to find you, looks to me just as bad in one 
denomination as another. And levity in those 
who ought to be serious-minded is levity to me 
wherever I find it. Now, look at our own circuit 
rider, only last Sunday ! After that powerful 
sermon which warmed up the whole town, and 
shook the dry bones, what did he do? — right 
out of the pulpit, too, — but stop and hang over 
the fence like a schoolboy for a laughing confab 
with Kitty Mills ! There she was, of course, 
standing out in the broiling sun with nothing 
but her apron thrown over her silly head, 
while you could hear old man Mills scolding 
her, the whole blessed time, at the top of his 
peevish voice. It was perfectly scandalous and 
nothing but scandalous to see such goings-on 
on the Lord’s Day. Kitty was telling him 
about her late young turkeys getting out in 
that last hard rain and holding up their heads 
with their mouths wide open, till the last one 
of them drowned. As if there was anything 
uncommon or funny in that; as if everybody 
didn’t know that young turkeys always did that 
whenever they got a chance. And the simple- 
tons were both laughing as if they’d never 
heard such a joke, and as if it had been Monday 
instead of Sunday, and the circuit rider hadn’t 
had any good work to do.” 

“ Maybe he thinks that is a part of his good 
339 


Oldfield 


work,” said the doctor’s wife, gently. “ Kitty 
Mills surely needs all the kindness she can get 
outside her own family, poor thing, though she 
doesn’t seem to know it.” 

Sidney smiled at a sudden recollection. “ I 
passed there yesterday, in the heat of the day, 
and saw her in the garden bending over and 
pulling the weeds out of her handful of vege- 
tables. It made me real uneasy to look at her 
leaning down so long and steady, and her so 
short and stout, and I said so. But she only 
laughed till she cried, and declared there wasn’t 
any danger except to her corset-boards. Then, 
when she could speak for laughing, she said 
she had saved almost enough to stick her 
bunch peas. And, — if you’ll believe it, — 
Sam left the garden gate open last night, and 
the pigs got in and eat every one of ’em up.” 

“ The corset-boards ? ” gasped Miss Pettus, in 
a tone of blank amazement, which implied, 
nevertheless, that she would not be in the 
least surprised at anything happening to Kitty 
Mills. 

Sidney eyed Miss Pettus humorously, as she 
loosed more rounds of yarn from her big ball, 
holding it out again at arm’s length ; but there 
was no time for any reply had she thought it 
worth while to make one, for Mrs. Alexander’s 
cook appeared in the doorway just at that mo- 
ment, to say that supper was ready, and, follow- 
ing the hostess, the guest went to enjoy it with- 
out allowing it to grow cold. The table had been 
set on the back porch, which was on the side 
340 


What Oldfield Thought and Said 

of the house that was most pleasant at that 
hour. And a truly pleasant place it was, with 
its whitewashed pillars, its cool green curtains 
of Madeira vine, so waxen of leaf and so frost- 
like in flower, and with its green and restful 
environment of grass and fruit trees. The table 
stood directly before the back door of the open 
passage. Sidney’s seat faced the big road, and 
she had scarcely seated herself, when, chancing 
to glance up, she saw Lynn and Doris as they 
passed, going along the big road. She said 
nothing, however, of having seen them ; she 
was always reserved about her own private 
affairs, and then she was still holding fast to her 
early determination to leave the young couple 
entirely free to follow the natural lead of their 
own hearts. But the glimpse of them reminded 
her of an uneasy suspicion that old lady Gor- 
don was not so minded, a suspicion which had 
occurred to her that day for the first time. 
Now, therefore, with the unhesitating decision 
characteristic of her in all things, she resolved, 
then and there, to talk it over with Miss Judy 
as soon as she could get away from the supper 
table. 

But it was never easy for Sidney to get 
away ; a hostess, paying the stipulated price of 
a high-priced entertainer, rightfully expects to 
get the worth of her fee. No one knew this 
better than Sidney herself, and she accordingly 
so exerted her utmost ability, so put forth her 
most brilliant talent, that she fully made up for 
the shortened time; and the only regret upon 


Oldfield 


the part of the hostess was that such a delightful 
entertainment should ever come to an end. Miss 
Pettus, also, was sorry to have Sidney go ; and, 
now quite restored to good humor, she whis- 
pered to her, as they parted at the gate, — one 
going up the big road and one going down, — 
that she meant to send Kitty Mills a couple of 
young turkeys that very night, just to keep her 
from behaving so like a simpleton the next time 
the circuit rider went by, and just to make her 
see how shamefully she had behaved about that 
stubborn old dorminica. 

Out into the dim, dusty highway Sidney now 
swung, with her long, free, fearless, indepen- 
dent step, which seemed to ask nothing of life 
and the world but to be allowed to go her own 
way; walking and knitting as fast as though 
the dusk had been daylight. Reaching Miss 
Judy’s house she found the little sisters sitting 
happily side by side just within the open door of 
the unlighted passage, as they always were to 
be found at that time on the summer evenings. 
Miss Judy was talking in her soft, bright little 
way, which reminded the listener of the chir- 
ruping of a happy bird ; and Miss Sophia was 
listening with enthralled interest between lapses 
of unconscious nodding. And now, as always 
when they talked together, both had the eager 
manner of having never before had a really 
satisfying opportunity to exchange vividly novel 
views and intensely interesting experiences, so 
that they hardly knew how to make enough of 
this truly delightful chance. 

342 


What Oldfield Thought and Said 

They were glad, nevertheless, to greet Sidney, 
as everybody always was ; and Miss Judy said, 
as soon as Sidney had come within speaking dis- 
tance, that Lynn and Doris had stopped for a 
moment to ask how she was feeling, and that 
she had told them she felt almost strong again, 
— nearly sure, indeed, of being able to give the 
tea-party on the coming Thursday. 

“ I am really mortified at not having given it 
before this time,” she went on, blushing un- 
seen in the gloaming. “ It does seem too bad, 
this spoiling of lovely plans just on account 
of a foolish shortness of breath. It was such 
a disappointment to sister Sophia, not to have 
the tea-party while the blush roses were in 
bloom, for they match mother’s best cups and 
saucers perfectly. And then came the cinna- 
mon roses — they might have done fairly well, 
though they are not quite so delicate a shade, 
but they also have bloomed and faded long 
ago. Now the hundred-leaf roses will have to 
do — as I was just saying to sister Sophia 
when you came, Sidney — although their hearts 
are rather too dark to be as pretty as the others 
would have been. But we must give the tea- 
party anyway, blush roses or no blush roses, 
without any more delay, since I have thought- 
lessly mentioned it to old lady Gordon, who never 
makes any allowances and who is rather critical.” 

“ Oh, you told her, did you ” exclaimed Sid- 
ney. “ Then that accounts for what I came to 
see you about.” 

“ I felt that it was due to Doris that I should 


343 


Oldfield 


tell her ; that she should know that only 
circumstances over which we had no control 
have so far prevented our paying the dear child 
the compliment of a formal introduction to 
society,” said Miss Judy, with her pretty, comical, 
society air. 

“ Well, it explains what old Lady Gordon 
said to me without rhyme or reason when she 
met me on the big road yesterday — stopping 
her coach in the middle of the big road to do 
it, too, — something that she never took the 
trouble to think of before.” 

Sidney leaned forward and peered up and 
down the highway to make sure that no one 
was within hearing, and she listened for an 
instant to Miss Sophia’s deep breathing in the 
still darkness of the passage. 

“Now, mark my words. Miss Judy,” she 
then said, in a guarded undertone. “ That old 
Hessian means to interfere. She is going to 
make trouble. I feel it in my bones.” 

“Why.'*” cried Miss Judy, startled and be- 
wildered. “ What do you mean, Sidney ? 
What did she say } ” 

“ She said — without rhyme or reason, as 
I’ve told you — that her grandson was going 
away very soon to begin the practice of his 
profession, and that he hadn’t any time to 
waste on any nonsense, like old women’s silly 
tea-parties. She didn’t call him by his name, 
either, as she always has called him heretofore. 
She called him ‘ my grandson,’ in that high and 
mighty, stand-off-and-keep-your-place way that 
344 


What Oldfield Thought and Said 

she knows how to put on, when she wants to 
and ain’t too lazy. Now, mark my word. Miss 
Judy. Trouble’s a-coming! ” 

“ Oh, how could any one be unkind to that 
dear child,” cried Miss Judy, almost in tears. 

“ I’d like to see anybody try it, while I’m 
’round,” said Sidney, with the fierceness that 
appears in the humblest barnyard hen when her 
chick is touched. “ I’m all ready and a-wait- 
ing. Just let old lady Gordon so much as bat 
her eye and I’ll give her goss. I’ll tell her the 
Lord’s truth, if she never heard it before. I’ll 
tell her to her face that no Gordon that ever 
stepped ever was, or ever will be, fit to dust my 
Doris’s shoes, so far as being good goes — or 
smart and good-looking either. This young 
Gordon is decent enough, I reckon, as young 
men go. And his father went pretty straight 
because he hadn’t the spunk or the strength 
to go crooked. He was like a toad under a 
harrow, poor soul ! He was so tame that he’d 
eat out of your hand. But even that old Hes- 
sian never harrowed or tamed the old man, 
who was a match for her. No-siree ! Not while 
he had the strength to hop over a straw. Why, 
the whole woods were full of his wild colts.” 

“ Ah, indeed ! I never knew that the old 
gentleman ever had any interest in horses,” 
Miss Judy murmured absently, almost tearfully, 
not thinking in the least of what she was 
saying. 

“ That was a long time ago,” said Sidney 
hastily, remembering suddenly to whom she was 
345 


Oldfield 


speaking. “ What the old folks were in their 
young days is neither here nor there. It makes 
no difference now. This young Gordon seems 
to be a fine young fellow, but, fine or coarse, all 
that I ask of that old Hessian, or of anybody, 
is to do as I do, and to let him and Doris 
alone, and not to meddle; just to give the 
two young things a fair field and no favor. 
And that’s what she and everybody’s got to 
do, too, or walk over Sidney Wendall’s dead 
body.” 

“Don’t — don’t,” entreated Miss Judy’s soft 
voice, coming out of the quiet darkness with a 
tremulous gentleness, and telling of the tender 
tears in her blue eyes. “ Let not your heart 
be troubled, dear friend. All will be well with 
the child. All is sure to come right at last, if 
we are but as patient and as trusting and as 
true and as faithful and as loving — above all 
as loving — as we should be. For love is now — 
as it was in the beginning, and ever shall be 
— the strongest thing in the world.” 


346 


XXII 


THE UPAS- TREE 

When Miss Judy, thus urged, set the day for 
the tea-party, naming even the hour, she forgot 
for the moment that the higher court of the 
district convened its summer session on the day 
which she had appointed. And this fact made 
it impossible to give the party on that day. N ot 
because she had ever had or ever expected to 
have anything to do with any court of law — for 
coming events do not always cast their shadows 
before — but because she expected a visit from 
Judge Stanley on the evening of his first day in 
town. For she always knew just when to look 
for him; during many years he had come on the 
same day of the month, at the same hour and 
almost at the same minute. And Miss Judy had 
through all those years been in the habit of 
making certain delightful preparations for his 
visit, which nothing but her love and anxiety 
for Doris ever could have caused her to forget, 
and which not even that could now induce her 
to forego. 

She looked forward from one of these visits 
to the next as to the greatest honor, and, after 
her love for Doris and her tenderness for her 
sister, the greatest happiness of her life. She 
347 


Oldfield 


knew how great a man this quiet, gray-haired, 
famous jurist was to a wider world than she had 
ever known; and the flattery of his open and 
exclusive devotion filled her gentle heart with 
sweet and tender pride. But there was some- 
thing far tenderer and sweeter than pride in the 
feeling with which Miss Judy awaited the com- 
ing of John Stanley; for he was always John 
Stanley, and never the famous judge, to her. 
She had loved him before he became a judge, even 
before he had become a man. She had learned 
to love him soon after his coming to Oldfield, 
when he was a mere lad, and her own youth 
was not long past. She had loved him then as 
a young and happy mother loves a son who is 
all that the happiest, proudest mother could 
wish — noble, gifted, handsome, spirited, fearless 

— loving him as such a mother loves such a son 
when they are young together. She loved him 
afterward with a still more tender love — when, 
in the space of a pistol shot, he had changed 
from a light-hearted boy into a sad, silent man 

— loving him then as a tender mother loves a 
son who has suffered and grown strong. 

His blamelessness in the hideous tragedy 
which had darkened his life, and the nobility 
with which he bore himself throughout the 
monstrous ordeal of blood, claimed all that was 
strongest and finest in Miss Judy’s nature, and 
touched her romantic imagination as all the 
brilliant success which came to him later never 
could have done. It was not for such innocent 
gentleness as Miss Judy’s ever fully to under- 
348 


The Upas Tree 

stand the meaning of the tragedy; to comprehend 
how much more terrible it was than the crud- 
est destiny of any one man, how much farther 
reaching through the past and the future than 
the length of any one man’s life. John Stanley 
himself understood it at the time but dimly. 
Only by degrees did he come to see the truth : 
that his forced taking of the life of a man whom 
he did not know, whom he never had seen or 
heard of, had not been simply an unavoidable 
necessity in self-defence, as he had tried to 
believe, — nor an accident, as the verdict of the 
law and public opinion had decreed, seeing that 
it was accidental only so far as his instrumen- 
tality was concerned ; that he himself was not 
the victim of chance — but the helpless trans- 
mitter of traditional bloodshed. 

It was revealed to him at the trial which 
acquitted him, that the man whom he thus had 
been compelled to kill had been driven — ay, 
even hounded — by public opinion into seeking 
the life of the man who had taunted him, and 
in so doing into finding his own death at the 
hands of a lad who had no quarrel with any 
one. It was then shown him that the slain and 
the slayer were equal sacrifices to this monstrous 
tradition for the shedding of blood. So that, as 
he began to see, and as he continually looked 
back upon this blighting tragedy of his boyhood, 
it thus became — to John Stanley, who was a 
thinker, and a Christian, even in his youth — 
infinitely more terrible than any really acci- 
dental or necessary taking of another’s life 
349 


Oldfield 


would have been. He saw in this monstrous 
deed which he had been forced to commit, 
the direct result of a tradition of bloody ven- 
geance: the unmistakable outcome of genera- 
tions of false thinking, of false believing, of 
false teaching, of false example, of false follow- 
ing; all the rank growth from one poisonous 
root, all deeply rooted in a false sense of “ honor,” 
which, planted by the Power of Evil, had grown 
into the very life of the people, until it now 
towered, a deadly upas tree, darkening and 
poisoning that whole sunny country, almost as 
darkly and killingly as its murderous kind had 
ever darkened and poisoned beautiful Corsica. 

When that awful truth first became plain to 
John Stanley — plain as the handwriting on the 
wall — it altered not only his character, but the 
whole trend of his life. From the day that he 
had first seen it through the bloody tragedy of 
his youth, John Stanley had watched the growth 
of the poison tree with ever deepening horror. 
He had seen its deadly shade pass the limits 
of the wrong which could never be washed out 
by the shedding of all the blood that ever flowed 
in human veins; he had watched its creeping 
on to trivial and even fancied offences, till it 
touched trifling discourtesies, till it reached at 
last inconceivably small things — the too quick 
lifting of a hat to a lady, the too slow response 
to the bow of another man — causing trifles 
light as air to be measured against a human 
life. As John Stanley thus looked on, — horror- 
stricken, — at the working of this deadly poison 
3SO 


The Upas Tree 

throughout the body of the commonwealth, he 
came gradually to believe it to be even more 
deadly and more widespread than perhaps it 
really was. His dread and fear of any form of 
violence, his horror of any lightness in the hold- 
ing of life, his abhorrence of bloodshed under 
any provocation, grew with this morbid brood- 
ing through sad and lonely years, until they im- 
perceptibly went beyond the bounds of perfect 
sanity, passing into the fixed idea which much 
lonely thinking brings into many sad lives. 

And John Stanley’s life was still lonely, not- 
withstanding his late marriage. Miss Judy felt 
this to be true, although she could not have told 
how she knew. It always had been a source 
of distress to her that she could know nothing 
of his wife, the beautiful, brilliant woman of 
fashion whom he had married only a few years 
before. Miss Judy thought wistfully that she 
would know why John seemed still so sad and 
lonely if she could only see his wife. But the 
judge’s fine-lady wife apparently found no in- 
ducement to come to Oldfield; so that Miss 
Judy was compelled to be content with asking 
how she was, whenever John came, and with 
hearing him say every time that she was well 
— and nothing more. 

But Miss Judy was not thinking about the 
judge’s wife on that midsummer night. It was 
enough for her perfect happiness merely to have 
him there, settled for the evening in her father’s 
arm-chair, which was fetched out of the parlor 
for him and never for any one else. It was 
3SI 


Oldfield 


delight only to look at him, smiling at her across 
the passage — wherein they sat because it was 
cooler than the room — quite like old times. 
He was a very handsome, very tall man, of 
slender but muscular build, stooping slightly 
from his great height through much bending 
over books. His head was fine, with a noble 
width of brow ; his thick hair, once very dark, 
was now silvered about the temples; but his 
eyes were as dark as ever, and undimmed in 
their clear, steady brightness. His face was 
sensitive in its clean-shaven delicacy, and pale 
with the pallor of the student. It was not so 
sad though on that night as usual, nor nearly so 
grave. He was rested and soothed and cheered 
— this famous man of large affairs — by listen- 
ing to Miss Judy’s gentle twittering, so kind, 
so loving. It pleased him to see the little 
things that she had done in preparation for his 
coming. He smiled at the sight of the small 
basket of rosy peaches daintily set about with 
maidenhair fern. He did not know that in 
order to get the fruit Miss Judy had made a 
hard bargain with the thrifty Mrs. Beauchamp, 
who had the only early peaches, — a very 
hard bargain whereby the little lady went with- 
out butter on her bread for a good many days. 
Nor did he suspect that she had climbed to the 
top of the steepest hillside trying to reach the 
woods, regardless of the fluttering of her heart ; 
or that she had ventured bravely even into the 
shadiest dell, heedless of her fear of snakes, in 
order to get his favorite fern to wreathe his 
35 2 


The Upas Tree 

favorite fruit. Perhaps no man ever knows 
what the pleasing of him costs a loving woman ; 
certainly no loving woman ever takes the cost 
into account. 

But then, on the other hand, perhaps no 
woman, however loving, ever can fully realize 
how much unstinted tenderness may mean to 
the greatest, the gravest, the most reserved of 
men, when he has never found it in his own 
home or anywhere else in all the cold world, 
which he has conquered by giving up the 
warmth and sweetness of life — as they must be 
given up by every conqueror of the region of 
perpetual ice. Miss Judy’s gentle love now 
enfolded him like a soft, warm mantle, so that 
the chill at his heart melted away. It was 
then very sweet on that fragrant midsummer 
night, to this sad and weary man, to hear Miss 
Judy babbling gently on. He did not always 
listen to what she said ; but the sound of her 
soft voice seemed for the moment to take away 
all weariness and pain, as she talked to him of 
the people and the things that he had known in 
his youth. She said about the same over and 
over, to be sure, almost every time he came, 
but that made no difference whatever ; it was 
the sweetness of her spirit, the peace of her 
presence, that the great judge craved and loved 
and rested upon. 

“And now, John, here are a few peaches — 
just the kind you like,” Miss Judy said, in her 
artlessly artful little way, as if the pretty basket 
had only that moment fallen from the clouds — 

353 


Oldfield 


as she always said when he had sat a certain 
length of time in her father’s chair in the cool- 
est corner of the passage. 

“ Why, — so they are ! ” exclaimed the judge, 
in delighted surprise, as he always exclaimed 
when the peaches were offered precisely at the 
time when he expected them to be. “ How 
in the world do you always remember — never 
once forgetting — from year to year? And 
these are the prettiest of all. See the rose 
velvet of that peach’s bloom.” 

And then Miss Judy, delighted, and beaming, 
bustled about, spreading her mother’s best nap- 
kin over the judge’s knees and under the plate 
(the prettiest one with the wreath of forget-me- 
nots), wishing with all her loving heart that she 
might find a pretext for tying something around 
his dear neck. When she had put an old silver 
knife in his hand, — after being as long about it 
as she could be — conscientiously, — she gave 
Miss Sophia also a share of the rosy feast, and 
then sat down with a sigh of complete content, 
and looked at them positively radiating happi- 
ness ; the happiness which only such a woman 
can feel in seeing those whom she loves enjoying 
pleasures and privileges which she never claims 
nor even thinks of, for herself. 

And thus passed the first two hours of the 
three hours that the judge always spent with 
Miss Judy on the first evening of his coming 
to Oldfield. There was something which he felt 
that he must say before he went away, but he 
shrunk from saying it, fearing to disturb Miss 
354 


The Upas Tree 

Judy; and so put it off as long as he could, 
waiting indeed till the last. He was not sure 
that it was a matter of real importance ; he was 
rather of the opinion that it was not of any 
actual consequence, and yet he could not help 
mentioning it in justice to Miss Judy. In 
glancing over the docket for the term, as he 
usually glanced immediately upon reaching the 
village, he was surprised to find that a suit 
had been brought against the estate of Major 
Bramwell for the payment of a note given by 
him to Colonel Fielding. Looking farther, 
he saw that the note had been transferred to 
Alvarado years before, and that the suit was 
brought in the Spaniard’s name. This was 
the shadow now coming over the judge’s 
visit to Miss Judy — this, and the blacker 
shadow cast by the past whenever John Stanley 
was compelled to remember the existence of the 
Spaniard, and the passion, cruelty, and deceit 
which had so ruthlessly shut the light out of 
three hapless lives. He never thought of him 
if he could help it ; he never had been known 
to speak of him nor heard to call his name. 
When Alvarado — mad with hate and jealousy 
that death itself had not been able to soften 
or to cool — had continued to thrust himself into 
the court upon first one wild pretext and then 
another wilder pretext, during term after term, 
the judge had steadily looked away, had stead- 
ily held himself from all anger as well as all 
violence, avoiding the clash which the madman 
sought. The coolness and skill of the jurist 
355 


Oldfield 


had enabled him to do this without great diffi- 
culty up to the present time, and he had no fear 
of not being able to do the same in the present 
case. He was not even any longer afraid of 
himself. Still, it was necessary that he should 
explain the matter to Miss Judy, since she must 
almost certainly hear of it and might naturally 
be hurt at his silence. His first impulse had 
been to send the amount of the note with inter- 
est to the holder of it by some third person, and 
so to dispose of the suit without Miss Judy’s 
knowledge. But a second thought made plain 
to him that the money was not what the Span- 
iard wanted, and that such a step, even if possi- 
ble, would be utterly useless. It would also be 
worse than useless to appeal to Colonel Field- 
ing or to try to learn how and when the note 
had come into Alvarado’s possession. The old 
man had always been a child in heart ; he was 
now a child in mind. And then — the unhappi- 
ness of John Stanley’s youth had so warped his 
maturer judgment of the causes of his misery — 
he had never been able to hold Alice Fielding’s 
father quite without blame for her sacrifice. 
No, he could not go to Colonel Fielding, not 
even now, in his age and feebleness, not even 
for Miss Judy’s sake. 

The strong often find it hard to understand 
how blamelessly the weak may yield to violence. 
The wise, for all their wisdom, hardly ever can 
see how innocence itself may lead the unwise 
into the pit digged by the wicked. No, John 
Stanley could not go to Colonel Fielding, who, 
356 


The Upas Tree 

although but as an innocent, helpless child nim- 
self now, alas ! had been the father of the girl 
whom he had loved, and who had been given to 
a bloodthirsty beast in human form. No, he could 
not do that, even for Miss Judy’s sweet sake. 
So John Stanley thought, under a sudden great 
wave of the old bitterness, with the pain of 
memory rushing back as if the flood of wretched- 
ness had engulfed him but yesterday. He could 
do nothing else than tell Miss Judy, and he must 
tell her at once — lest she hear it from some other 
source — and so gently that she could not be 
frightened, timid as she was. There need be 
no trouble about the mere money; he did not 
consider that at all ; unknowm to Miss Judy, he 
could shield her from that. Nor was there any 
danger of so much as a collision of words with 
the Spaniard, now or at any time. Nothing 
that could ever come to pass — nothing in the 
vast power of evil — could make him, whose 
hands had once been innocently dyed in a fellow- 
creature’s blood, lift his hand against another 
man, or force him to utter one word to tempt 
another to raise a hand against himself. 

Little by little the shadow had deepened, till 
Miss Judy saw it in his sensitive face, and had 
begun to grow uneasy before he spoke. 

“ Do you know, or, rather, did you ever 
know, anything about your father’s having 
given his note to Colonel Fielding,” he said, 
finally, when he could wait no longer. “ A 
note of hand, and without security, I believe.” 

Miss Judy’s blue eyes opened wide in startled 
357 


Oldfield 


surprise. Then she blushed vividly; even by the 
poor light of the one flickering candle the judge 
could see the rose color flush her fair face, which 
had been so pale of late. Her father’s debts had 
ever been a sore subject, and, although it was 
now many years since they had been recalled 
to her memory by mention, her sensitiveness 
had not lessened in the least. 

“No, I do not,” she said, with a touch of 
stiffness. “ Our father was not in the habit 
of speaking to us of business. He thought 
that gentlewomen should be shielded from all 
sordid matters,” she added, her gentle tone 
marking a wider distance than had ever before 
existed between John Stanley and herself. 

The judge felt it, and realized instantly that 
he had made a bad beginning, one very far 
indeed from his intention. 

“ But why do you ask? ” inquired Miss Judy, 
while he hesitated. 

“ My dear Miss Judy, nothing was further 
from my thoughts than to startle or offend 
you ; but you know that — I only meant to tell 
you that — that a small matter has arisen which 
— that an unimportant suit has been filed — ” 

Miss Judy arose suddenly, and stood before 
him like a sentinel guarding a post. “ Am I 
to understand, John, that some one is suing my 
father for debt,” she said stiffly, and almost 
coldly ; but the stiffness and coldness now were 
not for him. “Tell me all about it at once, 
please.” 

“ It is nothing to trouble you. If such a 
358 


The Upas Tree 

note be in existence, it must have been barred 
by the statute of limitation long ago. How 
long has it been since your father died ? ” asked 
the judge. 

“Over twenty-five years, — twenty-six years 
this coming October.” And as Miss Judy 
spoke she turned, with a soft sigh, and looked 
tenderly at Miss Sophia, and was glad to see 
that she was fast asleep, sitting straight up in 
her chair. 

“ And this note, if given at all, must, of 
course, have been drawn before that date. 
Your father was in Virginia a long time.” 

“Yes,” sighed Miss Judy, glancing again 
iovingly and protectingly at Miss Sophia. “ It 
is very painful to sister Sophia and myself to 
remember how long.” 

“ Don’t think any more about it,” said the 
judge. “ There can be no necessity for your 
giving it another thought. The length of time, 
the statute of limitation, protects you. The 
note cannot possibly be of any value.” 

Miss Judy stood still for a moment in per- 
plexed thought, with her little hands very tightly 
clasped before her. 

“ But if my father gave the note, — if he ever 
owed Colonel Fielding the money, and it never 
has been paid, I don’t see that time can make 
any difference,” she said at last, a little absently 
and a little uncertainly, as if she did not yet 
quite understand, but was, nevertheless, firmly 
feeling her way to the light. 

“Well, most people would think it made a 
359 


Oldfield 


difference,” the judge responded, smiling in 
spite of his sympathy with her troubled per- 
plexity. 

“ I can’t believe that Colonel Fielding can 
have meant to bring such a suit. He loved my 
father and honored him above all other men. 
I cannot believe that he would knowingly 
smirch the memory of his best friend ; unless, 
poor old man, his mind is entirely gone. And 
why has the note not been known about before ? 
Why have I never been told — all these years .? 
Are you sure, John, that there is no mistake.? 
Are you sure that the colonel has actually 
brought the suit.?” asked Miss Judy, piteously, 
with her blue eyes — clouded and filling with 
tears — fixed on the judge’s face. 

“ It is not the colonel,” murmured the judge. 

“ Then who is it ? ” persisted Miss Judy, with 
growing bewilderment and distress. “Who 
comes at this late day claiming that my father 
did not pay what he owed, — when he could 
have paid ? ” 

“ Alvarado,” John Stanley said, in so low a 
tone that she barely heard, thus forced himself 
to utter the name of the Spaniard for the first 
time since it had become to him an unspeak- 
able thing. 

“John — John, I humbly beg your pardon. 
I didn’t dream — oh, my son,” Miss Judy cried, 
forgetting her own trouble. 

She ran to him and laid her tender little 
hands on his broad shoulders, and gazed into 
his pale, calm face, all unconscious that her 
360 


The Up as Tree 

own was quivering and wet with tears — tears 
for the pain which she saw in his set face, 
for his sacrificed youth, for his lost happiness 
— tears most of all for gentle Alice Fielding, 
the girl whom he still loved, although she had 
rested so long in the grave of the broken- 
hearted. 


361 


XXIII 


THE BEGINNING OF THE END 

Misfortune never comes singly to a com- 
munity any more than to an individual. No 
life anywhere may ever stand or fall quite 
alone, so are the living all bound together. In 
a village where every door stands wide and all 
lives are in the open, and where no high, hard 
walls rise between the people, — as they do in a 
city, — the bond is closer than it can be else- 
where. So that the uneasiness which the judge 
communicated so unwillingly to Miss Judy on 
that quiet midsummer night was the beginning 
of the end of the peace of many of the good 
people of Oldfield, for a long time afterward. 

Sorely troubled. Miss Judy had lain awake 
hour after hour looking into the darkness, and 
trying to see the way to do that which she knew 
was right. She had seen her duty distinctly 
enough as soon as the judge’s meaning was 
clear ; the only uncertainty was as to the means 
of doing it. The money must be paid, the 
length of time during which it had been owing 
only making the payment more urgent. No 
loophole of the law could afford any means of 
escape to a sense of honor as fine and true as 
hers. Such a possibility did not cross her mind 

362 


The Beginning of the End 

as she lay thinking in the silence of the night, 
which was broken only by the peaceful little 
puffing sound that came tranquilly from Miss 
Sophia’s side of the big, high bed. Miss Judy 
again softly put out her thin little hand in 
the dark, and softly patted her sister’s round, 
plump shoulder with protecting tenderness, as 
she always instinctively caressed her when 
trouble drew near. Come what would, this 
sister, so tenderly loved, should not know or 
suffer any privation that could be prevented. 
It would be hard to keep her from knowing 
if the payment of the note should require the 
entire amount of the next pension money, which 
was every cent they would have for months. 
Still, Miss Judy remembered how she had 
managed, several times ere this, in keeping 
other unpleasant things from her sister’s knowl- 
edge, and she now lay revolving transparent 
schemes and innocent fictions, alternately 
smiling and sighing, half proud and half 
ashamed of her own deep duplicity. 

The result of the night’s reflection was that 
she went early on the next morning to the tavern 
to see Judge Stanley, hoping to be able to 
speak to him before he left his room for the 
court-house. But some little delay had been 
required — scat least Miss Judy imagined — in 
order to allay Miss Sophia’s suspicions, and the 
judge was already gone when Miss Judy reached 
the tavern. She hesitated for a few moments, 
blushing, embarrassed, confused, and utterly 
thrown out of her plans. She had never en- 
363 


Oldfield 


tered the court-house ; she had never heard of 
a gentlewoman’s doing such a thing. The very 
thought of approaching the door of it shocked 
her as something improper and almost im- 
modest. And yet it was absolutely necessary 
for her to see the judge immediately, so that 
she might tell him of her decision before the 
case could be called. She would do almost 
anything rather than allow her father’s honored 
name to be dishonorably mentioned in the hear- 
ing of the people of Oldfield, who had revered 
him all their lives, and looked up to him as the 
finest of gentlemen, the most valiant of soldiers. 
Without giving herself time to shrink or to 
flinch, she turned desperately and hurried 
toward the court-house, as she would have 
marched to the cannon’s mouth. 

The court was barely opened, the judge was 
just taking his seat on the bench, when the 
sheriff came and told him that Miss Judy was 
at the door and would like to see his Honor if 
he “would kindly step outside.” The sheriff 
smiled in bringing him the message, his broad, 
kind face broadening and growing kinder with 
the affectionate indulgence which everybody 
always felt for Miss Judy’s harmless peculiari- 
ties. Even the judge’s grave face relaxed some- 
what, lighting and softening, as he promptly 
arose from the bench and went to do the little 
lady’s bidding. He found her on the other 
side of the big road, and not at the door of the 
court-house, where he had expected to find her. 
She had, indeed, hastily retreated as far as she 
364 


The Beginning of the End 

dared, after sending for him, and now stood 
awaiting him, terrified and trembling, at being 
even as near the door as she was — hovering 
like a bird just alighted but ready to take flight. 
In her agitation she held the front breadth of 
her best bombazine very, very high indeed, so 
that her neat little prunella gaiters were plainly 
visible, and even her trim ankles were quite 
distinctly in sight ; and there were also unmis- 
takable glimpses of snow-white ruffles of an 
antiquated fashion, like the delicate feathers 
about the feet of a white bantam. 

“ I wanted to see you, John, before the suit 
could come up,” she began pantingly at once. 
“ I thought it all over last night, — after you 
were gone.” 

“Everything is right. Miss Judy. I consid- 
ered the matter again when I went back to the 
tavern. Don’t give it another thought. The 
suit is barred by limitation long ago,” the judge 
said gently, as if soothing a frightened child. 

“ But is it really a note of my father’s ? Did 
he ever owe the money ? And is it true that the 
debt never has been paid ? That is what I wish 
to know,” persisted Miss Judy, with all the ear- 
nestness of a woman who knows well the mean- 
ing of her words. 

Her blue eyes were uplifted to his face, and 
she read in it the answer which he would have 
been glad to withhold. 

“ Then it must be paid,” she said firmly, 
promptly, conclusively. She had been drifting 
out of her depth ever since the stunned plunge 
365 


Oldfield 


of the first shock ; but she now felt solid 
ground once more under her feet. “ There is 
my dear and honored father’s pension for his 
services in the War for Independence. A por- 
tion of that could scarcely be better used than 
in discharging any pecuniary obligation of his, 
which he may naturally have forgotten, or 
chanced to overlook.” 

This was said loftily, almost carelessly, as 
though the large size of the pension made any 
unexpected demand upon it a mere trifle, and 
with a gentle, sweet look of pride. The judge 
could not help smiling, notwithstanding that he 
was touched and even troubled, knowing how 
grave a matter any call for money must be to 
Miss Judy. Looking down upon her from his 
great height, he thought he never before had 
known what a frail pretty little creature she was, 
nor how deeply, purely blue her eyes were, with 
the blue of fresh-blown flax-flowers, nor how like 
silver floss her hair was, till he now saw it new 
burnished by the sunlight. But he stood in 
silence, uncertain what to say, fearing to wound 
her. 

“ And the amount of the note ? How much 
is it?” Miss Judy asked suddenly, after the mo- 
mentary silence. 

Nothing could have been more like her, more 
entirely characteristic of her whole life, than that 
this question, which would have been the first 
with many, should have been the last with her. 
Yet now that it had occurred to her, she held 
her breath with fear. If it should be more than 
366 


The Beginning of the End 

the amount of the whole pension, — more than 
she had or ever hoped to have in the wide 
world, — what should she do then? 

“ It was drawn for a hundred dollars. I 
have not yet calculated the interest,” the judge 
answered reluctantly. 

Miss Judy gasped and turned white; the 
earth seemed suddenly sliding beneath her feet. 
Then in another instant a scarlet tide swept the 
paleness from her alarmed face. The blood in 
her gentle veins was, after all, the blood of a 
soldier, and she fought on to the last trench. 

“ It must be paid, as soon as possible,” she 
said formally, as if speaking to a stranger; but 
she laid her trembling little hand in John Stan- 
ley’s warm, firm clasp with a look of perfect love 
and trust before she turned from him and went 
on her troubled way homeward. 

He stood still for a moment when she had 
left him, gazing after the little figure in black 
fluttering against the warm wind. Then he 
turned slowly and went back to his seat on the 
bench, and the routine of the court forthwith 
began to drone throughout the long, hot day. 
A feeling of foreboding, a vague dread of some 
unknown calamity, had hung over him when he 
had first awakened on that morning ; as though 
a formless warning had come through the mists 
of unremembered dreams. He was not able to 
cast off the depression which it caused, and the 
feeling deepened with the dragging of the heavy 
hours. But it wavered still without distinct 
form. It had nothing to do with his hourly, 
367 


Oldfield 


momentary expectation of seeing the Spaniard’s 
threatening face and wild eyes confronting him 
through the gloom of the low-ceiled court-room. 
He was used to the sight and he never had 
feared it, save as he always feared himself and 
the enforced shedding of blood. The only un- 
usual thing was that Alvarado should not be in 
his accustomed place that day, as he invariably 
had been heretofore, whenever the judge had 
been on the bench; but this fact gave the judge 
no uneasiness, he hardly thought of it at all, for 
his mind was filled with other things. He leaned 
his aching head on his hand as the business of 
the court droned dully along and the heat grew 
steadily greater. He thought, vaguely, that it 
must be the heat and the scent of the catalpa 
flowers which weighed so heavily upon him. 
For a few large, white bells swung uncommonly 
late amongst the heavy, dusty foliage of the 
catalpa trees, crowding close to the deep win- 
dows, darkening the court-room and shutting 
out every breath of the fitful, sultry breeze. 

He left the court-house as soon as he could 
get away, and strolled slowly toward the far- 
thest, highest hillside, whither he often went at 
the close of a tiring day. The warm wind had 
died out of the valley, but the air would, so he 
thought, be cooler on the hilltop ; a cool breeze 
nearly always stirred the tall cedars of the 
graveyard, as if with the chill air of the tomb. 
He found the gate open, as it always was. 
There was never any need for closing it. 
Within were no gilded bones to be stolen : with- 
368 


The Beginning of the End 

out were no inhuman robbers of graves. So 
that here those who rested within had nothing 
more to fear; and those who strove without 
could not be barred when they also came to stay. 

Leaning on the fence, he turned and looked 
down upon the drowsing village ; at the men, 
white and black, who were going homeward with 
the unhasting pace of the country ; at the black 
women with milk-pails, crossing the back lots 
whence the cows were calling ; at the farmers, 
already far in the distance, riding away from 
court; at the great road wagons, with their 
mighty teams of four and six horses. These 
great wagons were the huge ships of this vast 
inland sea of wheat and corn and tobacco, and 
now but lately launched, heavy-laden, with the 
newly garnered grain. 

And then, as his wandering, absent gaze fell 
near by, upon the path from the village leading 
up the hillside, he saw that Lynn and Doris 
were slowly climbing it after him toward the 
graveyard. He had met the young man at the 
tavern on the previous day, and he had known 
his father. He had always known Doris in the 
distant way in which he knew all the people of 
Oldfield, with the sole exception of Miss Judy. 
He therefore greeted them with the formal cour- 
tesy that he gave to every one ; and he talked 
with them for a few moments, in his grave, im- 
personal way, but he was disappointed in his 
wish for solitude, and he lingered no longer than 
good breeding required. He did not stay to go 
over to an isolated corner of the graveyard as he 

2B 369 


Oldfield 


had intended, to see if the tangle of weeds and 
briers, which makes the desolation of neglected 
burial-grounds, had been taken away from one 
solitary grave, as it always was when he came 
and never at any other time. He could 
not do this in the presence of any one, so that, 
lifting his hat with a faint smile, he now 
turned his face toward the village and the 
tavern. 

At the foot of the hill he happened upon the 
little Frenchman, who sat groaning by the 
roadside, unable to walk because he had 
wrenched his ankle, spraining it very badly, 
in getting over the fence. 

“ But it is not that I do care for the pain. 
Bah !” cried monsieur, with a Gallic gesture and 
an inflection that belonged to no nation and 
was wholly his own. “ It is — helas ! — the 
ploughing for the spring wheat. A man may 
not hobble after the plough, neither may he 
follow with crutches.” 

“ Oh, you needn’t trouble about that. There’s 
plenty of time, and you can’t plough, anyway, 
until a rainfall has softened the ground,” said 
the judge, kindly. 

“ The black man, devoid of intelligence, who 
tills the fields of monsieur the doctor, ploughs 
to-day in the dust. Should the grain of the fields 
of monsieur the doctor grow quicker and thrive 
better than the grain of the fields of madame 
the mistress, whose fields I myself do till, then 
I shall surely mortify.” 

“■ There’s nothing to be done in the fields 
370 


The Beginning of the End 

now,” the judge said, trying not to smile. “Let 
me help you,” bending over and offering his 
strong arm and broad shoulder. “You’ll be all 
right again in good time for the spring wheat. 
A sprained ankle is no Waterloo!” 

The Frenchman shrunk, dropping away from 
the outstretched arm as though it had struck 
him down. His face, open and transparent as 
a child’s, had been confidingly upturned ; now 
it fell, reddened and clouded with anger, indig- 
nation, and shame. Falling back, he tried at 
once to rise again, only to sink — groaning and 
helpless — more prone than before, while hiss- 
ing through his clenched teeth something 
about le sentiment du fer. 

“It is the fatal misfortune of my father that 
you do insult!” he said fiercely, in English, 
striving vainly to maintain an icy civility. 
“ When it is that I may again stand on my feet, 
your Highness will perhaps — ” 

“ Come, come, Beauchamp. You are suffer- 
ing. Here, let me help you.” 

Jamais! Jamais! — not to ze death ! ” cried 
monsieur, shrieking with mingled rage and 
pain. 

The judge, from his calm height, looked 
silently down on the pathetic little form 
stretched at his feet, at the gray head resting 
now on the hard earth, and, seeing the dignity, 
the tragedy, which strangely invested it, a 
great surge uplifted the deep pity for the 
mystery and the sorrow of living which always 
filled his sad heart. 


371 


Oldfield 


“ As you please about that, Mr. Beauchamp. 
But you must allow me to pull off your boot 
before your leg becomes worse swollen. You 
are risking permanent injury by keeping it on; 
the hurt seems more serious than any mere 
sprain,” he said, with the gentle patience that 
great strength always has for real weakness. 

And then this stately gentleman, this famous 
judge, knelt down in the dust of the common 
highway, beside this poor distraught, angry, 
resisting, atom of humanity, and tenderly re- 
leased the injured ankle from the pressure that 
was torturing it. 

“ Now, that’s better,” he said, rising, and look- 
ing round in some perplexity. “ Ah, yonder is 
a cart coming up the big road. I can get the 
driver of it to take you home.” 

He spoke to the negro who was driving the 
swaying oxen, and gave him some money, and 
stood waiting until he saw the Frenchman 
lifted carefully and safely into the cart, and 
well started on the way toward his home. 
Then the judge went on his own lonely, home- 
less road to the tavern. The lengthening shad- 
ows of the hills were already darkening the 
valley, although a wonderful golden light still 
lingered above the summits, making the new 
moon look wan. There was only daylight 
enough for the judge to see old lady Gordon 
sitting alone at her window, and seeing her, 
he was reminded that it was his duty to tell her 
of the accident which had befallen the manager 
of her farm. 


372 


The Beginning of the End 

She looked up suddenly, almost eagerly, at 
the sound of his approach, and peered into the 
gloaming with the sad intentness of weary 
eyes which are no longer sure of what they 
see. When she recognized the judge, she 
suddenly settled heavily back in her chair with 
an abrupt movement of angry disappointment. 
She did not thank him for coming to tell her, 
and she did not ask him to come in. She 
merely nodded with the rude taciturnity which, 
with her, always marked some disturbance of 
mind. 


373 


XXIV 


OLD LADY Gordon’s anger 

For this breaker from a sea of troubles, 
gradually overspreading all Oldfield, had now 
gone so far that it had stirred, at last, even the 
long unstirred level of old lady Gordon’s vast 
indifference. 

It had been many a long year since she had 
been moved to such anger as she was feeling 
on that day ; few things seemed to her worth 
real anger ; she accepted almost everything 
with careless, almost amiable, tolerance. Self- 
ishness as absolute as hers often wears a 
manner very like good nature, because it is 
far too great to be moved by trifles. 

Poor old lady Gordon ! She had managed 
to sink her disappointment in self-indulgence, 
as wretchedness too often sinks itself in opium. 
She had eaten rich food because the eating 
of it helped to pass the dull days of her dis- 
tasteful life ; she had read all the novels within 
her reach — good, bad, and indifferent — be- 
cause reading was not so tiresome as thinking, 
when there was nothing pleasant to think about ; 
she had laughed at many follies and mistakes 
which she saw clearly enough, because it 
seemed to her useless to try to prevent folly 
or the making of mistakes. 

374 


Old Lady Gordon’s Anger 

And yet none knew the true from the false 
better than this honest, scornful old pagan, who 
had buried more than one talent, more than 
ordinary intelligence, under habitual sloth of 
mind and body ; and none had a more genuine 
respect for all that was finest and highest. But 
her own early striving toward it had met too 
complete a defeat for her — being what she was 
— to go on striving or to think it worth while 
for others to strive. A nature like hers can 
never submit, unembittered and unhardened, to 
wrong and unhappiness ; nor is it ever winged 
by the spiritual so that it may rise above its 
false place in the world. It can only beat itself 
against the stone wall of environment, or recoil 
in fatalistic indifference. And in this last poor 
old lady Gordon had found refuge so long ago 
that she had quite forgotten the pain — and 
the pleasure — which comes with suffering 
through loving. 

And then, after she had thus lived through 
many wasted days, and many empty nights, it 
seemed as if this grandson had come It the 
eleventh hour to open the door of her prison- 
house. She had not believed it at first ; more 
than a half-century is so long to wait for every- 
thing which the heart most craves, that it can- 
not believe at once when its supreme • desire 
seems about to be granted at last. But, never- 
theless, old lady Gordon’s pleasure and pride 
in her grandson had grown fast and steadily 
through those perfect days and weeks of sum- 
mer. It had pleased her more and more to 
375 


Oldfield 


hear his strong, gay young voice ringing 
through the silence of the dull old house. It 
had pleased her more and more to look at his 
bright, handsome young face across the table, 
which had been lonely so long. It had pleased 
her most of all to have his cheering young pres- 
ence — so overflowing with hope and spirits — 
at her side, through the dreary hours of the 
lingering twilight, when she had been forced, 
in the solitude of the old time, to face alone 
the dreaded muster of disappointment’s mock- 
ing spectres. 

Thus had old lady Gordon regarded her 
grandson in the beginning of her acquaintance 
with him. But she gradually began to know 
him, to see him as he really was, to think that 
he might be what he meant to be. And so, 
little by little, this hard, embittered, lonely old 
soul came finally to believe that a grudging 
fate was, after all, about to grant to her age the 
true son of her own heart, of her great pride, 
of her unbounded ambition — the son whom 
it had #0 cruelly denied to her youth and matu- 
rity. Then there came a strange and piteous 
stirring of all her long-numbed sensibilities ; 
a powerful, and even terrible, uprising of all 
her intensest feelings. It was as if a mighty 
old grapevine, long stripped of fruit and 
foliage, long fallen away from every living 
thing, long trailing along the earth — deeply 
covered with mould and weeds — as if such a 
mighty, twisted, hard old grapevine were sud- 
denly to put forth strong new tendrils, and, 
376 


Old Lady Gordon’s Anger 

entwining them around a young tree, should 
thus begin to rise again toward the last light 
of life’s sunset. 

And now, just as this late warmth was 
sending its rays through the chill veins of 
unloved and unloving old age, — the coldest 
and the saddest thing in the whole world, — 
old lady Gordon once more found herself fac- 
ing the same danger which had wrecked all her 
earlier hopes. She had shut her keen old eyes 
to it at first, and had merely smiled, although 
she had seen her grandson’s interest in Doris 
quite clearly ever since its commencement. 
The girl seemed to her so far beneath her 
grandson in station as to be safely outside any 
serious consideration. For no Brahmin was 
ever more deeply imbued with the prejudice of 
caste than this slothful old lady Gordon ; and no 
consideration other than a serious one could 
disturb her in the least. Moreover, she rested 
for a while upon her confidence in Lynn’s 
singleness of purpose, believing in his deter- 
mination to allow nothing to turn him from 
the pursuit of his ambition. But later, as 
the summer days went by and she saw him 
giving more and more of his time to this 
yellow-haired, brown-eyed, sweet-spoken, soft- 
mannered daughter of the village news-monger, 
and less and less to the thought and study 
of his chosen profession, a doubt entered her 
mind, and began to rankle like a thorn in 
the flesh. As she was left more and more 
alone, till she had scarcely any of her grand- 
377 


Oldfield 


son’s society, which was now become so sweet, 
she had time to remember the folly and 
weakness of his father, and the folly and 
wickedness of his grandfather. These dark 
memories, surging back, as she brooded in 
solitude, brought old bitterness to her new 
uneasiness ; and yet, recalling many mistakes 
which she had made in the old time through the 
rashness of inexperience, she still kept silence, 
resolving not to fall into such errors again. She 
did not speak slightingly of the girl, recalling 
that as one of her most fatal errors ; and she was 
also withheld by a grim sense of justice which 
was always lurking, half-forgotten, within her 
hard old breast. She accordingly wisely con- 
fined herself to passing comments upon Sidney, 
and to occasional references to Uncle Watty, 
directing most of her witty, satirical talk toward 
love and marriage in the abstract. One day she 
read Lynn a couple of lines from an old novel 
which said that : — 

“ Falling in love is like falling downstairs ; 
it is always an accident, and nearly always a 
misfortune.” 

She had many such dry and stinging epi- 
grams at her sharp tongue’s end in those days, 
when she was using wit, satire, irony, and ridi- 
cule as weapons to defend her late-coming hap- 
piness. Poor old lady Gordon ! it was very 
hard. Selfishness always makes opposition bit- 
terly hard, and it is hard indeed to have 
been compelled to wait through the space of a 
generation for the supreme desire of the heart. 

378 


Old Lady Gordon’s Anger 

It was harder than a nature so imperious as 
hers could endure, to meet such ignoble inter- 
ference at this eleventh hour, now that its 
late fulfilment seemed so near, now that she 
herself had so little time for longer waiting. 

So thus it was that scornful impatience gradu- 
ally gave way to bitter anger, to the fierce, com- 
pelling anger of the autocrat long unused to 
having her will crossed, much less lightly set 
aside, and, least of all, to having it totally disre- 
garded. It was lightly and even gayly that Lynn 
had gone his own way in opposition to hers ; but 
when their wills had clashed slightly once or 
twice, old lady Gordon had seen that they were 
made of the same piece of cold steel. She had 
recognized the fact with a queer mixture of 
pride and displeasure, but the recognition had 
turned her away from all thought of force, and 
she had henceforth resorted to subtler measures. 
She had tried — with a gentleness so foreign to 
her nature that it was pathetic — to keep him at 
her side, as a tigress might softly stretch out a 
paw — every cruel claw sheathed in velvet — 
to draw a cub away from danger. But this 
too failed, as the efforts of the old to hold the 
young always must fail when nature calls. 
And thus it was that the lingering twilights 
of those last summer days found old lady 
Gordon again alone, as the judge had found 
her ; again solitary at lonely nightfall ; again 
— with the long night so near — gazing into 
the gathering darkness at the ghostly assem- 
blage of all her dead hopes. 


Oldfield 


Lynn did not come that night until she had 
turned and tossed through more than one sleep- 
less hour. At breakfast the next morning they 
had little to say to one another. It was nearly 
always so now, although Lynn had scarcely 
noted the fact that all ease and confidence 
had gone out of their companionship. He was 
always in haste of late to get away ; every morn- 
ing he went earlier to join Doris, forgetting all 
about the law books which lay on the table in 
his room, and which his grandmother used to 
go and look at and turn over — most piteously. 
She now used rarely to stir from her chair ex- 
cept to do this. Every evening he was later 
in leaving Doris, and slower in coming home ; 
and he never lingered now on the dark porch 
to think over his plans. And day by day 
old lady Gordon’s secret wrath burned more 
fiercely, although she still kept it carefully 
covered with the ashes of assumed indifference. 
But on the evening of the judge’s visit her long- 
smouldering anger had, for the first time, burst 
into flame beyond her control. She had seen 
Lynn and Doris passing on their way to the, 
graveyard ; she had watched the flutter of the 
girl’s white skirt at her grandson’s side all along 
the slow, winding way up to the high hilltop. 
The sight had been as wind and fuel to raging 
fire. It was well for the judge that he had not 
lingered while the flames thus raged; it was 
well for Lynn that he had been for the moment 
beyond the reach of his grandmother’s burning 
contempt; it was well for Doris — though as 
380 


Old Lady Gordon’s Anger 

innocent of all offence as one of the white 
lambs feeding on the hillside — well that her 
return was unseen in the gloaming ; it had been 
well — most of all — for this fierce old spirit 
itself that certain strong, dark drops, from the 
bag hanging at the head of her bed, could lay 
for a few hours the mocking ghosts of dead 
hopes, all slain by folly and weakness, even as 
this last one seemed now being put to death 
before her very eyes. 

The morning found her spent in strength; 
and the fire of her anger, although uncooled, 
was again covered by the silence of exhaustion. 
Moods of silence were, however, not unusual 
with her, and Lynn was too deeply absorbed in 
his own pleasant thoughts to observe his grand- 
mother’s ominous brooding. When the meal 
was over, with the exchange of hardly a dozen 
thoughtless words upon his part, and of taciturn 
responses upon her side, Lynn took up his hat 
and went out of the house and toward the gate. 
Pausing under the cypress tree, he looked back 
and smiled and waved his hand ; and then he 
went swiftly along the big road toward the 
silver poplars. 

Old lady Gordon sat quite still in her chair, 
gazing after him with darkly drawn brows, with 
her turkey-wing fan lying forgotten on her lap, 
and her novel cast, neglected, on a chair by her 
side. She had not told Lynn of the accident to 
the manager of the farm; she had not spoken 
of her intended visit to the Frenchman on that 
morning ; she had not asked her grandson to go 
381 


Oldfield 


with her, although she walked with difficulty and 
even with pain, and longed with age’s helpless- 
ness to have him near by to lean upon. When 
Lynn was quite out of sight she arose — a fine, 
majestic old figure in her loose white drapery — 
and started across the fields, making her slow, 
painful way to the Beauchamp cottage. She 
found the Frenchman in bed, and, seeing how 
seriously he was hurt, and remembering the farm 
work which must go undirected, she was not in 
a better humor when she turned her face home- 
ward. Still she held her wrath with an iron hand, 
exercising perhaps the greatest self-control that 
she had ever brought to bear upon anything 
during her whole life. She even forced herself 
to make some gruffly civil response when Lynn 
came back to dinner at noon, and hastened away 
again as soon as he could, with a few hurried, 
happy words and another gay smile and careless 
wave of his hand. But all through the after- 
noon hours of that long, dull, solitary day old 
lady Gordon’s anger grew as thunder clouds 
gather, and when, after supper, Lynn again took 
up his hat and turned, intending again to leave 
her, the brewing tempest suddenly burst upon 
him. 

“ Have you ever stopped to think where 
all this philandering must lead ? It’s high 
time,” she broke out, hoarse with passionate 
rage. 

The young man, holding his hat in his hand, 
wheeled and looked at his grandmother in utter 
amazement, startled, almost alarmed, by the 
382 


Old Lady Gordon’s Anger 

violence of her tone and by the suddenness of 
the attack. 

“I don’t understand. I don’t know in the 
least what you mean,” he said honestly enough, 
and yet, even as he spoke, a glimmering con- 
sciousness came into his open face. 

“Oh, yes, you do. You know perfectly well, 
but I’ll put it plainer if you want me to,” she 
went on, roughly, sneeringly. 

Lynn reddened, putting up his hand with a 
gesture imposing silence. “ Perhaps I do un- 
derstand something of what you mean,” he said 
hesitatingly, with the hesitation which every 
right-minded man feels at referring — however 
distantly — in any such connection to a girl 
whom he reveres. “ And if I do understand 
anything of what you mean, you must allow me 
to tell you that there has been no philandering, 
nor any semblance of it.” 

“Then what do you call it.?” she demanded, 
with even greater violence and roughness than 
before. “ May I ask how you characterize this 
perpetual dawdling, all day and nearly all night, 
at the heels of a girl whose rank is hardly above 
that of a servant — a girl whom even the son of 
your father, or the grandson of your grandfather, 
could scarcely be fool or rake enough to think 
of — except as something to philander after.” 

She hurled the brutal words at him as she 
would have thrown stones in his face, far too 
furious to think or to care how they might 
hurt. 

He recoiled, shocked, revolted, by the sight of 
383 


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such unrestrained anger in age. It seemed an 
incredibly monstrous thing. Then he stood 
still, looking at her with a cool courage which 
matched her flaming rage. He now moved 
farther away, but it was solely because he felt a 
sudden extreme repulsion. 

“ Pardon me,” he said icily, moving still far- 
ther, still nearer the open door. “ It is you who 
do not understand. There certainly is nothing 
that any one else can possibly have misunder- 
stood. I have been scrupulously careful all 
along that there should not be. I have guarded 
every act, every word, every look — ” 

Old lady Gordon burst out laughing like a 
coarse old man deep in his cups. 

“ Oh ho ! ” she scoffed. “ So that’s how the 
matter stands, is it ? How high-minded ! how 
prudently virtuous ! How perfectly Sidney’s 
daughter must understand. How highly the 
girl must appreciate it. Of course she does 
understand and appreciate your prudence, 
your thought — of yourself. What woman 
wouldn’t? Even a simpleton of a country girl 
must have been overcome by it. She can’t help 
forgiving you for trying your best to make her 
fall in love with you, if you have been as stead- 
fast — as you say you have — in warning her 
that you didn’t mean to fall in love with her. 
How she must honor and admire you ! ” she 
taunted, with something masculine in her voice, 
and laughing again like a coarse old man. 

The shafts of her merciless scorn pierced the 
armor of the young man’s cool calmness like 
384 


Old Lady Gordon’s Anger 

arrows barbed with fire. It seemed to him for 
an instant as though flame suddenly wrapped 
him from head to foot. He felt literally scorched 
by a burning sense of shame, although, dazed 
and bewildered, he could not yet see whence it 
came. The blood rushed into his face, into his 
head ; his eyes fell ; he could not keep them on 
his grandmother’s mocking, scornful face. 

Old lady Gordon’s fiery gaze did not fall, but 
it softened. A strange look, one which was 
hard to read, came to replace the expression of 
contemptuous anger. There was still some 
scorn in it, yet the scorn was curiously mingled 
with vanity. 

“Well, after all, you are more like me than 
you’re like the men of the family,” she said ab- 
ruptly, with a sudden return to her usual manner. 

Lynn could not speak ; he could not look at 
her. He silently bent down and took up his 
hat, which had dropped from his nerveless grasp, 
and with bowed head he went silently out into 
the shielding dusk. 


2C 


38s 


XXV 


THE REVELATION OF THE TRUTH 

The first wound received by true self-respect 
is always a terrible thing. And the truer the 
self-esteem and the better founded, the more the 
slightest blow must bruise it. The deepest 
stabbing of the derelict can never hurt so much 
or be so hard to heal. It may indeed be doubted 
whether a touch on the real quick of a fine 
sense of honor ever entirely heals. 

A man coarser and duller than Lynn Gordon 
was, less high-minded, less essentially honora- 
ble, could not have suffered as he was suffering 
when he went out that night into the dusky 
peace of the drowsing village. Yet he could 
hardly tell at first whence came the blow which 
had wounded him so deeply. The suddenness 
of the arraignment had dazed him; the violence 
of the attack had stunned him ; so that he was 
conscious mainly of a strange bewilderment of 
pain and humiliation, as though he had been 
struck down in the dark. 

He went through the gate as if walking in a 
distressful dream, and turned toward the silver 
poplars, as he had turned at that time of the 
evening for many weeks, but turning through 
sheer force of habit, scarcely knowing whither 
386 


The Revelation of the Truth 

ne went. It was not yet quite nightfall ; the star- 
light was just beginning to meet the twilight, 
only commencing to arch vast violet spaces 
high above the dim trees on the far-folded hills. 
The silvery mists, ever lurking among the 
fringing willows of the stream murmuring 
through the meadows, were already rising to 
cloud the lowlands with fleecy whiteness, radi- 
antly starred with fireflies. The few languid 
sounds of living heard in the day, now had all 
passed away before the coming of night. Only 
the plaintive song of the white cricket came 
from the misty distance ; only the lonely chime 
of the brown cricket rang from the near-by 
grass ; only the chilling prophecy of the katy- 
did’s cry shrilled through the peaceful silence 
of the warm, fragrant gloaming. 

But the softest dusk of heaven, the com- 
pletest peace of earth, is powerless to calm the 
storm which beats upon the spirit. Lynn Gor- 
don strode on as though to confront the full 
glare of life’s fiercest turmoil. He was driven 
by such stinging humiliation as he had never 
expected to know ; he was goaded by such pain 
of mind as made his very body ache. So that 
he thus went forward, swiftly, fiercely, for a score 
of paces, and then he stopped and stood still, 
arrested by a sudden thought which was as 
blasting as a flash of lightning. For an instant 
his hot and heavy-beating heart seemed to cease 
its rapid throbbing and to grow suddenly cold 
with sickening fear. Another moment and he 
felt as if a living flame wrapped him again from 


Oldfield 


head to foot, so intolerable was the burning 
shame that flashed over him. Had Doris seen 
him — as his grandmother had seen him } Had 
Doris recognized in his guarded attitude toward 
her an intended warning to guard her own heart 
— as his grandmother had said.? Had Doris 
felt — as his grandmother had charged — that 
he had thus offered her the most unpardonable 
indignity that an honorable man can offer a 
modest woman ? 

Under the shock of the thought he recoiled 
from it as too monstrous to be true. That 
exquisite, spotless child ! That sacred em- 
bodiment of peerless beauty! He could have 
groaned aloud as the unbearable thought clung 
like a flaming garment. Yet he could not cast 
it from him ; and out of the smoke of memory 
fhere now came swirling many little half- 
forgotten incidents. Small things, which had 
then seemed at the time to be trifles light as 
air, now came back, seeming confirmations 
strong as proof of holy writ. Under the light 
of this fiery revelation one recollection stood 
out more distinctly than any other. He re- 
membered giving Doris some simple little gift. 
He saw again in this dim, unpeopled dusk, 
even more clearly than he had seen it then, 
the bewitching brightness of her beautiful face, 
the soft radiance of her lovely, uplifted eyes, 
as he had put the bauble in her eager little 
hands. And now, while he still saw her thus, 
he heard his own voice saying an incredible 
thing. He now heard himself — not some dull, 
388 


The Revelation of the Truth 

blundering, brutal dolt — saying something 
vague about its being strictly an “ impersonal ” 
sort of present. 

Ay, he heard again the very tone in which 
his own voice uttered these inconceivable 
words. And then he saw again the dawning 
bewilderment which crept over the sunny trans- 
parency of the exquisite face ; the slow shadow- 
ing of the soft dark eyes, raised so frankly, so 
confidingly to his; the quick-coming, quicker- 
going, quiver of the sweet rose-red lips. At 
last, as though the glass through which he had 
seen darkly were miraculously become as clear 
as crystal, he saw again the quivering fall of the 
long, curling lashes over the lily cheeks, which 
reddened suddenly, as they rarely did, before 
growing swiftly whiter than ever; the sudden 
proud lifting of the golden head, which natu- 
rally drooped like some rare orchid too heavy 
for its delicate waxen stem; the brave, steady, 
upward look from the soft eyes, now suddenly 
grown very bright: the abrupt laying down of 
the simple gift by the little hand, which was 
always so gently deliberate in all that it did : 
the hasty moving away of the slender form, 
which had, up to that time, rested at his side 
in the perfect trust which only the timid ever 
give. 

All this rushed back, bringing an unendura- 
ble self-revelation. The firmest, deepest founda- 
tions of his character were shaken in his own 
estimation. His pride of uprightness, his pride 
of intelligence, his pride of good breeding, his 
389 


Oldfield 


belief in his own right feeling, his reliance upon 
his own quickness of perception, his faith in his 
fineness of sensibility, — all these now stood 
convicted of weakness and falsity. Faster 
and more confusedly many self-delusions flew 
through the stress of his mind, as burning 
brands are borne by violent gusts of wind. 
Thus was hurled the recollection of that day 
in the graveyard, the day from which had 
dated this growing aloofness of Doris, an 
aloofness so gentle that he had mistaken it 
for timidity; the day from which had dated 
her increasing unwillingness to continue these 
daily strolls — an unwillingness so subtle that 
he had taken it for nothing more than natural 
anxiety about Miss Judy. Not until this mo- 
ment had he had the remotest suspicion of the 
truth, even though it had gradually frozen 
the sweet freedom of her innocent talk into 
the silence of cold constraint. 

He had been standing still, bowed under this 
intolerable weight of humiliation, crushed be- 
neath this overwhelming burden of self-re- 
proach. Now he went slowly onward, unseen 
and unheard, through the gathering darkness 
and the deep dust. When he came within 
sight of the light shining behind the white cur- 
tain over the' one window of Doris’s humble 
home, he paused again and leaned on the fence 
and looked at the window for a long time. He 
felt that he could not go nearer it that night, 
that he could not face Doris until he had more 
fully faced his own soul. As he gazed at the 
390 


The Revelation of the Truth 


white light, he thought how like it was to the 
girl herself, so simple, so clear, so steady, so 
open, shielded only by the single whiteness of 
purity. A soft breeze coming over the hills 
rippled the silver leaves, — grown as dark now 
as the sombre plumes of the cypress tree, — and 
stirred the white curtain as if with spirit hands. 
And then as he lingered there came to him a 
wonderful change of feeling. The thought of 
her stole softly to him through the warm star- 
light, sweet as the breath of the white jessamine. 
A great, deep tenderness welled up in his heart 
and went out to her, sweeping all before it — 
all untrue dreams of ambition, all false think- 
ing, all self-delusion. Then he knew that he 
loved her; then he knew that he had loved 
her from the instant that his eyes had fallen 
upon her, a vision of beauty framed in roses; 
then he knew that he would love her with the 
highest and finest love that was his to bestow — 
so long as he should live. 

When this bitter-sweet truth came home to 
his troubled heart, it brought with it a calm, 
tender sadness. Even as he recognized it he 
felt that his own blind folly, his foolish conceit 
of wisdom, had robbed him of whatever chance, 
whatever hope he might have had, of winning 
her love in return. The fatal, unforgivable 
blunders into which he had fallen so blindly 
must forever stand in the way. And he hardly 
dared think there ever could have been any 
hope, even had he not so hopelessly offended. 
For humility is always the hall-mark of true 
391 


Oldfield 


love. To be loved by the one beloved is always 
true love’s most wondrous miracle. 

With a last lingering look at the light shin- 
ing through the white curtain, Lynn turned 
slowly and went down the big road toward his 
grandmother’s house, now lying dark and silent 
beneath the tall trees which stood over it and 
amid the thick shrubbery which crowded around 
it. The passionate emotion with which he had 
left it had passed wholly away. The love filling 
his mind and heart, as with the sudden unfurl- 
ing of soft wings, left no room for anything 
hard or unkind or bitter. He had almost for- 
gotten the hard words with which his grand- 
mother had so cruelly stoned him; he had 
wholly forgiven them. For newly awakened 
love can forgive almost any harshness in the 
awakening. He was not, in fact, thinking of 
his grandmother at all ; he was thinking solely 
of Doris, and was planning to see her at the 
earliest possible moment on the morrow. It was 
not easy of late to see her alone ; he realized 
this now with a guilty pang which touched his 
new peace with the old pain. Only on the pre- 
vious evening he had found her gone from her 
home, without leaving a message for him, as she 
always used to leave one. Only by the merest 
accident had he met her coming out of Miss 
Judy’s gate; only by the most urgent persua- 
sion had he been able to induce her to take the 
accustomed walk to the graveyard, which she 
used always to be so ready and even eager to 
take. Ah, that walk up the hillside, which had 
392 


The Revelation of the Truth 


been as a torch to the tinder of his grand- 
mother’s anger! For that, also, as for every- 
thing else, he alone was to blame. It was too 
late to undo what had been done; but never 
again through any fault of his should evil 
speaking or evil thinking approach her spotless 
innocence. It was not for his strong arms to 
protect her; his own folly had forfeited all 
hope of that sweetest and most sacred privilege. 
Nevertheless, he might still beg her to forgive 
him, even though he knew that forgiveness was 
impossible for an offence such as his. And 
he might still tell her that he loved her and 
ask her to be his wife, although he knew only 
too well that she would refuse. And then, hav- 
ing done what he could, he would go on with 
his work. He had not forgotten his ambition, 
nor had he thought of giving it up; but his 
old foolish belief that the happiest marriage 
must hamper a man’s life plans had gone with 
the rest of his blinding delusions. He no longer 
thought of needing both hands free for the 
climbing of ambition’s unsteady, long ladder. 
It now seemed to him that he never could win 
anything worth the winning without Doris to 
hold up his hands ; that nothing either great or 
small was worth the winning unless shared by her. 
And his self-delusion had forever lost him all 
hope of this. Yet he might still beg her to for- 
give him, he might still tell her that he loved her 
and ask her to be his wife. Nothing should 
deny him that honor and happiness — if he were 
but spared to see another morning’s light. 

393 


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It came with all the misty glory of the late 
southern summer. There was something mel 
ancholy, something foretelling the saddest days 
of the year, in the sighing wind which drifted 
the browning leaves of the old locust trees, waft- 
ing them down to the thinning grass. The dim 
woods belting the purpled horizon already lifted 
banners of scarlet and gold, waving them here 
and there on the hillsides, among the fast-fading 
verdure. The sumac bushes were already bind- 
ing the foot of the far green hills with brilliant 
bands of crimson. The near-by blackberry 
briers were already richly spotted with red. 
The trumpet-vine, with the dazzling cardinal of 
its splendid flowers and the rich, dark green of 
its luxuriant foliage, already made all the crum- 
bling tree-trunks and all the falling rail fences 
gorgeous mysteries of beauty. The golden- 
rods were already full-flowering, already gilding 
the meadows where the black-eyed Susans, too, 
were aglow, and where the grass was still 
vividly green beneath the purple shadows cast 
by the distant hills — the sad, beautiful, dark 
shadows which slant before the coming of fall. 
Beyond the shadows and beyond the hills, the 
summer sun still flooded the warm fields, turning 
the vast billowing seas of tobacco from blue- 
green into golden green. And the wide, deep 
corn-fields, now flowing in silver-crested waves, 
were already melting into molten gold. 

The great ships of this vast inland ocean of 
grain — the huge, heavy-laden wagons, rising 
high at the ends like the stem and stern of a 
394 


The Revelation of the Truth 

vessel, and drawn by doubled and trebled 
teams — already labored, swayingly, on their way 
to the Ohio River to deliver their cargoes of 
wheat to the big steamers which were waiting 
to bear them away to the whole world. Many 
of these lurched thunder! ngly by Lynn Gordon, 
wholly unheeded, as he went on that morning 
to seek Doris Wendall. It was very early, as 
early as he could hope to find even Doris awake, 
notwithstanding that she awakened with the 
birds. The wild morning-glories, clinging, wet, 
fragrant, and sparkling, on all the fences along 
the wayside, were not closed, and still held out 
their fragrant blue cups, striped with red like 
streaks of wine, and brimming with dew. The 
evening primroses also had forgotten to close, 
and were still blooming bright and sweet, close 
in the corners of the fences. Lynn bent down 
to gather the freshest and sweetest, because it 
somehow reminded him of Doris, though he 
knew not why or how. As he straightened up 
he suddenly saw her! — with a great leap of his 
heart. There she was, within a stone’s throw, 
just entering Miss Judy’s gate. He was not 
quite near enough to speak had he found any 
words; and, although he went swiftly toward her 
with the long, firm stride of a strong-willed 
man approaching a distinct purpose, she had 
flitted out of sight before he reached the gate. 
He was not sure that she had seen him, but he 
felt that she had ; and the feeling brought 
back the new distrust of himself, the new lack 
of confidence in his own judgment, the new 
395 


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insecurity in his own knowledge of what was 
best to do. All these strange and painful feel- 
ings, which he had never known till the hum- 
bling revelation of the previous night, rushed 
together now, to hold him dumb and helpless, 
with his unsteady hand on the little broken 
gate. 

He turned with a nervous start at a sound 
by his side. Sidney had drawn near without 
his seeing her. She stood within a few paces, 
looking at him, and knitting as usual, but with 
a look of trouble on her honest face. Silently 
he bowed and stepped aside, holding the gate 
open for her to pass through. 

“You’ve come to ask about Miss Judy,” she 
said, lowering her voice. “ I’m afraid she isn’t 
any better. Doris came on ahead of me, but I 
haven’t seen her since, so that I have had no 
news from Miss Judy for nearly an hour.” 

“I — I didn’t know she was ill, ” said Lynn, 
simply. 

“ Well, your grandmother did. I sent her 
word last night that we hardly expected Miss 
Judy to live till daybreak.” Sidney spoke a 
little severely, and she looked at him with 
frank curiosity. 

“ I am sincerely grieved. What is it ? ” the 
young man faltered. 

“ It seems to be the same old weakness of 
the heart that she’s always had. Any kind- of a 
shock has always made it worse, and this foolish 
lawsuit of that crazy Spaniard’s — over an old 
no-account note of her father’s — gave her the 
396 


The Revelation of the Truth 

hardest blow she’s had this many a year, poor 
little soft soul. It, didn’t make any difference to 
her that the note wasn’t worth the paper it was 
written on, and that it had been outlawed long 
ago. She has always had her own queer little 
notions about things, and you couldn’t shake 
her, either, mild as she has always been. And 
she’s always worshipped her father, so that she 
couldn’t bear to have anything against his name. 
He never worried himself much about his debts. 
The major was very slack-twisted in business 
matters, just between you and me. But the 
angel Gabriel, himself, couldn’t make Miss 
Judy believe that, even if he were mean enough 
to try. Last night she came by my house, 
going on to see Mr. Pettus. She hoped he 
might buy the house, and that she could raise 
the money in that way. But she fainted be- 
fore she could tell him what she wanted, and 
he carried her home in his arms. Such a 
poor, light, little mite of a thing! She’s been 
unconscious most of the time since, but when- 
ever she comes to herself she tries to say 
something about selling the house — in a whis- 
per, so that Miss Sophia won’t hear. Then she 
begins to worry, wondering what Miss Sophia 
will do if the house is sold, and honestly believ- 
ing that poor Miss Sophia will feel disgraced if 
it isn’t, when Miss Sophia neither knows nor 
cares a blessed thing about the whole matter, 
so that she’s let alone to eat and sleep. I am 
going into the room now to stay with Miss Judy 
while Doris goes home for a little rest. She 
397 


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wouldn’t leave the bedside for an instant last 
night. Wait for her,” Sidney added, assuming 
a blank, meaningless expression. “When she 
comes out she can tell you how the poor little 
soul is.” 

With a strange tightening of the throat and 
a tender aching in his breast, Lynn then stood 
waiting, with his eyes on Miss Judy’s window. 
It seemed a long time before Doris came out, and 
when she finally appeared, there was something 
indefinable in her manner which made him feel 
that she had not come of her own accord. But 
she was very calm, very quiet, very sad, and 
very pale ; and her soft dark eyes were softer 
and darker than ever with unshed tears. She 
merely said that her mother had sent her to 
say that there was no change. The doctor had 
decided that there could be but one. And 
when she had said this she quietly turned back 
toward Miss Judy’s room. No, she answered 
in reply to his keenly disappointed inquiry, she 
was not going home. She could rest and sleep 
— after — Miss Judy was gone. There was so 
little time now that they could stay together. 


398 


XXVI 


THE TRAGEDY 

The news of Miss Judy’s illness reached the 
judge as he was leaving the tavern for the open- 
ing of court. It was then too late for him to 
go at once in person to ask how she was, as 
he wished to do, and as he otherwise would 
have done. But he nevertheless turned back 
and went to his own room, long enough to write 
her a few hurried lines telling of his deep and 
tender concern. 

And when this was written he was not satis- 
fied. He sat hesitating for a moment, listening 
absently to the ringing of the court-house bell. 
Then, again taking up his pen, he went on to 
beg her not to give another troubled thought 
to the note or to the suit. He wrote that pos- 
sibly the case might come for trial on that very 
day, — writing this as lovingly, as tenderly, as 
he could have written to his mother whom he 
had never known, — and going on to tell her 
that he wished her to know, only for her own 
peace of mind, that the payment of the note, 
both principal and interest, had already been 
arranged for, and would be made, if possible, 
before the opening of court. This was, so he 
wrote, to be quite regardless of the decision in 
399 


Oldfield 


the case, and solely to set her mind wholly at 
rest After writing thus far he still sat think- 
ing, feeling as if he had not yet said just what 
he meant to say, as if he had not been quite 
tender enough of the little lady’s tender sensi- 
bilities. With his pen poised he looked out 
at the passing wagons and at the crowd gather- 
ing around the court-house, taking no heed 
of anything save the anxiety in his mind. 
At last a sudden, gentle smile illuminated 
his grave, pale face, as he added another para- 
graph : — 

“ Of course you understand, my dear little 
friend, that this money is advanced as a loan 
which you may repay at your convenience. 
You will also understand, I am sure, that I 
should not have taken the liberty of thus set- 
tling your private business without your con- 
sent, had I not heard of your illness and feared 
that you were not able to attend to it yourself. 
As soon as you are well enough you may scold 
me as much as you like for my presumption. It 
is, however, to be between ourselves; no one 
else must know.” 

He gave the letter to a negro boy and watched 
him fly like an arrow through the clouds of dust 
which were hanging heavy over the big road. 
He saw the child’s hazardous dash between the 
great wagons, close to the high, grating wheels, 
under the huge, clanking trace-chains, almost 
under the beating iron hoofs. For this quiet 
morning of late summer chanced to be the one 
out of the whole year when the grass-grown 
400 


The Tragedy 

solitude of Oldfield’s single street became a 
thronged, clamorous, confused thoroughfare. 

But the judge cared nothing for all this un- 
wonted turmoil, beyond the safe, swift passage 
of the messenger bearing his letter. He did 
not know that Miss Judy was too ill to read it, 
and he was longing to have it reach her before 
she could hear any troubling news through the 
possible coming up of the case. Turning slowly 
toward the court-house, he was thinking solely 
of her, and the thought of her illness deepened 
the sorrow for the pain of the world which al- 
ways lay heavy on his sad heart. As he thought 
of this gentle soul, whose whole life had been 
loving sacrifice for others, and whose very life 
might now be demanded for the wrong-doing 
of others, the sorrowful mystery of living per- 
plexed him more sorely than ever. As he 
thought of this other innocent woman suffering, 
it might be even unto death, through a mad- 
man’s causeless hatred of himself — even his 
great faith, measured by his judicial mind, 
seemed for the moment to shrink. 

Feeling his danger, he tried to wrench his 
thoughts away and to turn them from this 
morbid brooding. He strove so strenuously 
that he presently was able to fix his attention 
on the matters of merely human law and justice 
which began to come before him, as soon as he 
had taken his place upon the bench. Thorough 
training and long practice helped him so that 
he was gradually able to bring his eminently 
legal mind to bear upon the wearying routing 

2 D 401 


Oldfield 


of the docket with the unerring precision of 
some marvellous machine. 

His fine face was still pale, but there was 
nothing unusual in its paleness, and it now 
grew calm and collected under the very intensity 
of his spirit’s stress. For the farthest spiritual 
extremity lies cold and still beyond all human 
passion, as the supreme summit of perpetual ice 
rises cold and still above all human life. There 
was, therefore, no change in his attitude of mind 
or body when he suddenly saw the dark, threat- 
ening visage and the wild, bloodshot eyes of the 
Spaniard confronting him through the crowded 
gloom of the heated court-room. He was accus- 
tomed to the sight ; it had faced him at every 
term of his court. There was consequently no 
disturbance, not the slightest uneasiness in the 
abrupt turning away of his eyes. His sole feel- 
ing was one of unutterable weariness of the 
struggle of living, of utter sickness of mind and 
heart and soul. He was so weary that he did not 
even fear himself, so utterly weary that he was — 
for the moment — no longer afraid even of the 
unexpected escape of his own fierce temper, 
always so hardly held in leash. He no longer 
dreaded the sudden breaking of the steel bars 
of his own stern self-control, the greatest danger 
that he had ever found to fear. 

When the case against the estate of Major 
John Bramwell came to trial in its due turn, 
during the dragging hours of the long, hot 
afternoon, the judge weighed that also, as he 
had weighed all which had come before, and as 

402 



1 


1 


The Tragedy 

he intended weighing all which were to come 
after — coolly, calmly, scrupulously — according 
to the letter of the law. Having so weighed it, 
and found it wanting, he dismissed the com- 
plaint on account of time limitation, and 
assigned the costs to the plaintiff, as he would 
have done in any similar case under like cir- 
cumstances. Then he passed composedly to 
the deliberate consideration of further business, 
and the hot, heavy hours droned on. 

Through it all he had scarcely glanced at 
Alvarado ; in truth he had scarcely thought of 
him save as a party to one of the many suits 
before the court. He had had no opportunity 
to learn that the Spaniard had refused to accept 
the money, offered early in the day, in payment 
of the note. He did not observe Alvarado’s 
leaving the court-room after the decision. He 
did not know that the man was waiting on the 
steps when he himself hastened out after the 
adjournment of court. 

Thus it was that the long-coming crisis 
found him at last wholly unprepared. Thus it 
was that the blow from the heavy handle of 
the Spaniard’s riding-whip struck him without 
warning. It sent him, stunned and reeling, 
down the steps. His hand went out, through 
blind instinct, and caught one of the portico 
pillars, so that he did not fall quite to the 
earth ; and he was on his feet instantly, spring- 
ing to his great height, to his tremendous power 
— towering above the surrounding crowd. As 
he arose, he made one furious leap, like the 
403 


Oldfield 


magnificent bound of a wounded lion, straight 
at the Spaniard, who stood — still as a statue 
— braced for the encounter. 

A cry of terror had gone up from the crowd 
when the blow had been struck. Many re- 
straining arms were now raised, as the white 
fury flashed over the judge’s pale face, as rare 
and deadly lightning glares from the paleness 
of a winter sky. And then this appalling 
danger-signal faded even as it flashed forth. 
The cry of the crowd was suddenly hushed, 
its swaying was suddenly stilled. There now 
followed a strange pause of strained waiting ! 

Every man’s eyes were on the judge. No 
man gave a glance to the Spaniard ; every man 
knew what he meant to do. But the judge — 
it was on his noble figure and on his fine face 
that every man’s eyes were riveted. Every 
man knew his horror of violence of any de- 
scription, and his abhorrence of the taking of 
human life under any provocation. Vet every 
man, thus looking on, held it to be impossible 
for any man to suffer the degradation which 
this man had just suffered, without resistance. 
For in every man’s eyes this was, with but one 
exception, the most binding of all the many 
traditio7is for the shedding of blood. 

No man might suffer it, and ever hope to 
hold up his head among his fellow-men, with- 
out killing, or at least trying to kill, the man 
who had so degraded him. Breathless, indeed, 
was this instant’s terrible waiting ! The blood- 
thirsty wild beast, which lurks forgotten in 
404 


The Tragedy 

most men’s hearts, now leaped up in its secret 
lair, scenting blood, and stared fiercely out of 
the fierce eyes fixed on the judge. And not 
one of all these men — all so feeling, all so be- 
lieving — could credit the evidence of his own 
senses when he saw this man, who stood so 
high above other men in body, in mind, and in 
reputation, now stand still, making no farther 
advance. Even less could they believe what 
their own eyes beheld, when they then saw him 
draw back, slowly and silently, from the near- 
ness to the Spaniard to which that single un- 
controllable bound had carried him. And so 
the crowd stood — stricken dumb and motion- 
less — for a breath’s space ! Then — suddenly 
— every upraised arm came down as the judge’s 
powerful arms fell at his side. Calmly, almost 
gently, he turned, and, raising his majestic form 
to its fullest height, and lifting his noble head to 
its highest level, he rested his calm, clear gaze 
on the murderous passion of the Spaniard’s 
eyes. It was a long, strange look. It was a 
look which filled every man who saw it with 
a feeling of awe ; even though not one, of all 
those who were looking on, could comprehend 
its meaning. It was a look such as not many 
are permitted to try to comprehend : it was a 
look such as no mortal men can ever have 
seen, save it may have been the few who stood 
close to the foot of the Cross. 

In his own room at the tavern, late on that 
afternoon, the judge felt more alone than ever 
before through all his lonely life. He had 
405 


Oldfield 


already begun to suffer the mental reaction 
which nearly always follows great spiritual ex- 
altation. He was even now thinking of what 
he had done — what he had ;^^»/done — as if he 
were another person. He most distinctly saw 
its inevitable, far-reaching, and never-ending 
consequences. He realized that he, no more — 
perhaps even less — than any other man, could 
expect to evade them, or hope to live them down. 
The very fact of his prominence could but make 
the matter more widely known and more dis- 
astrous in its results. The high office which 
he held — though it personified the law — 
would only make his breaking of this unwritten 
law all the more unpardonable. Suddenly he 
felt completely overwhelmed by the weariness of 
life, which had so weighed upon him through the 
day. In terrifying fear of himself he sprang to 
the open window and hurriedly leaned out, find- 
ing a measure of safety in the mere presence 
of the people passing on their way home from 
court. But some of them looked up, and stared 
at him curiously, so that he drew back. He 
had not closed the door of his room, and he 
was glad to hear footsteps in the passage, al- 
though he merely turned his head without 
speaking when the man, to whom he had given 
the money for the payment of the note, came 
in quietly, and laid it on the table within reach 
of his hand. Nor did the man speak, — there 
was nothing for any one to say, — but he stood 
for a moment hesitatingly, irresolutely; and 
then, still without speaking, he drew a pistol 
406 


The Tragedy 

from his pocket, and laid it on the table beside 
the money. 

When he was gone the judge got up and 
closed the door, and took the pistol in his hands, 
which were beginning to tremble now as they 
had never trembled before. Hastily he put the 
temptation down, and walked to the door and 
opened it again: taking swift, aimless turns up 
and down the room. At the sound of footsteps 
again passing along the passage, he called to a 
servant and asked for some water. The pres- 
ence of any one would protect him against him- 
self. Turning this way and that, aimlessly, he 
turned once more to the window, and threw it 
higher and pushed the curtain further back — 
as far this time as it would go. He then leaned 
out again, caring nothing now for the curious 
gaze of the passers-by, caring only that he 
might escape this overpowering, horrifying, 
paralyzing fear of himself. 

The highway was heavily overhung with clouds 
of dust as the huge wagons with their mighty 
teams, which had passed in the morning, now 
rumbled homeward, returning from the journey 
to the river. Through the dark haze the judge 
could see only the proud face of his wife, and it 
seemed to his fevered fancy that her cool smile 
was cooler than ever with something very like 
scorn. It seemed to his sick imagination that 
he could see again the half-contemptuous shrug 
of her graceful shoulders, the half-scornful lift 
of her handsome brows, with which she always 
greeted any disregard of the established order. 

407 


Oldfield 


Above the rude sounds of the iron-bound 
wheels, the clanking chains, and the beating 
hoofs, he heard the music of the light laugh 
with which she had always mocked his own 
deviations. She had called him an idealist, a 
dreamer — even a fanatic — half in jest, half in 
earnest. But this was different. She would 
not laugh at this, which must alter her position 
in the world as well as his own. And then, as 
he thought of this, a doubt for the first time 
assailed him, piercing his breast like a poisoned 
spear. Had he the right — toward her? She 
had married a man who stood fair before all 
men. Again, in the anguish of this last thought, 
this new dread, this worst doubt, the deadly fear 
of himself rushed over him. Weakened and 
sickened in body by the anguish of mind which 
was rending him, he dared not turn his head 
toward the table where the temptation lay with- 
in such easy reach of his shaking hand. 

Leaning as far as possible the other way, he 
caught sight of the old Frenchman, toiling 
along the big road on crutches, threading a 
passage through its unusual turmoil with diffi- 
culty and pain. Then the wind tossed the 
deep dust and sent it swirling upward in thick, 
dark clouds, shutting the highway from the 
judge’s unseeing sight. He had hardly been 
conscious of seeing Monsieur Beauchamp ; 
everything was passing in a fearful dream. He 
scarcely heard a new, strange roar which now 
suddenly arose above the voices of the passing 
people, above the rumble, the rattle, and clash 
408 


The Tragedy 

of the passing wagons and the heavy beating 
of many great hoofs. But he heard more 
consciously as this came nearer and louder, 
like the rapid, roaring approach of a sudden 
terrible storm. He saw clearly enough when 
the cause of the violent sounds burst over the 
highest hilltop, and dashed down its side — 
as a gigantic wave is driven by a hurricane, 

— a huge wagon thundering behind six mighty, 
maddened, runaway horses. Like some mon- 
ster missile it was hurled this way and that, 
crashing terrifically from side to side of the 
big road; and threatening the whole highway 
with destruction. Like death-dealing thunder- 
bolts the flying iron hoofs gave little time to 
flee for safety, but the danger appeared to 
give wings to every living creature, brute 
and human alike. The old Frenchman alone 
stood still, paralyzed by fright and unable to 
move. His crutches dropped from his power- 
less grasp, so that he could no longer even 
stand, and — tottering and shrieking for help 

— he fell helpless, prone upon the highway 
straight in the track of that huge, blurred, 
black bulk of Force which was being whirled 
toward him with the speed of a cyclone by 
the storm-flight of those frenzied horses. 

And then the judge’s vision magically cleared, 
and he saw the little Frenchman — his weak- 
ness, his utter helplessness — as if by a light- 
ning flash. The judge, starting up with a 
leap, was down the stairs and running along 
the big road almost as soon as he realized 

409 


Oldfield 


what it was that he was going to meet. He 
was such a powerful man, so quick and strong 
of mind and body, so prompt, so able, so fear- 
less in the doing of everything that he thought 
right ! Ah, the pity of it all ! 

He could not see the old man upon first 
reaching the highway. Blinding dust-clouds 
hung more heavily than ever over the wild, 
furious confusion of the big road. The people, 
terror-mad, were fleeing, each one thinking only 
of his own peril. The drivers, panic-stricken, 
whirled the clashing wagons hither and thither, 
utterly bewildered. The horses, helpless and 
terrified, plunged amid the clanking of the 
entangled trace-chains. The dense clouds of 
smothering dust hung like a blinding pall. 
But the judge knew where the little French- 
man was lying and sprang straight toward 
him and found him in time, — barely in time 
to bend down, to lift him in his mighty arms 
and toss him like a feather far beyond danger. 
But there was no more time, — not an instant, 
— and then the judge himself went down as a 
church spire falls before a tempest, — down into 
the dust of the earth under the awful, crushing 
hoofs of the maddened horses, down under the 
cruel, cutting tires of those merciless wheels, — 
down to death, giving his life for the humblest 
of his fellow-creatures. 


XXVII 


THE LAST ARTFULNESS OF MISS JUDY 

To Lynn Gordon, as to most of the Old- 
field people, it seemed as if this sleepless night 
— the saddest ever known to the village — 
never would end. And yet, when he arose 
at last, with the first faint glimmer of the day’s 
gray, and looked out through the dew-wet dim- 
ness of the green boughs at the softly whiten- 
ing east, a sudden feeling of peace fell upon his 
deeply troubled spirit. 

The sorrow and terror of the darkness fled 
away, like evil birds of the night, so peaceful 
did the world appear, so free from all pain and 
wrong and cruelty and death, now that the soft 
white dawn-light — cool, sweet, calm, pure as 
ever — was coming for the perpetual refresh- 
ment of the earth. Under this fresh whiteness 
from heaven all living creatures looked to be 
resting untroubled, completely in harmony 
with one another. Three little screech-owls sat 
as a single bunch of gray feathers, motionless 
among the shadows which still lingered in the 
nearest tree. Three little brownish heads merely 
turned slowly as he appeared at the window, 
and six big eyes regarded him calmly, as though 
all belonged to the one small bunch of dark 


Oldfield 


gray feathers, still huddled sleepily together 
almost within reach of his hand. 

From the darker and more distant trees 
gradually swelled the twitter of many bird 
voices, rising into a rapturous chorus as the 
east became rifted with rose and seamed with 
silver. Every member of this divine choir was 
singing his softest and sweetest in celebration 
of the dawn’s eternal renewal of creation. And 
then, as the rose brightened into royal red, and 
the silver melted into molten gold, at the nearer 
approach of sunrise, the oriole — already wearing 
the sun’s golden livery — sent forth his ringing 
welcome to the king, a greeting so brilliant and 
so ancient as to make the trumpeter’s mediceval 
salute to the emperor seem but a poor dull thing 
of yesterday. 

With this music in his ears and this seeming 
peace and happiness before his eyes, Lynn Gor- 
don could hear no sound of the sorrow of living, 
nor could he find any sign of the pain of the 
world. An unconscious smile lifted the weight 
from his heart as he idly watched a merry couple 
of nuthatches — those gay little jesters in sober 
feathers, who enliven the solemn silence of the 
trees — tumbling up and down a giant elm. He 
did not see the solitary butcher bird, nature’s 
most cruel executioner, sitting in motionless, 
sinister silence in the dark depths of a great 
thorn tree, nature’s cruelest scaffold. 

As the light grew brighter the young man’s 
eyes followed the wood smoke arising from the 
tall chimney of the tavern in slender thin 
spirals of pale blue, and going straight up to 
412 


The Last Artfulness of Miss Judy 

spirals of pale blue, and going straight up to 
the bluer blue of the warm, windless sky. 
With the sight, the deep sadness of the night 
came back suddenly and overwhelmingly. It 
was not a terrible dream ; it was a more terrible 
reality. Under that old mossy roof, so simple, 
so peaceful-seeming, lay all that was mortal of 
the noblest presence, the noblest mind, the 
noblest heart that this isolated corner of the 
earth had ever given to the greater world. 

Before a tragedy so overwhelming every 
earnest soul striving in Oldfield stood awed, 
although it was not given to many to compre- 
hend that the greatest awe which even the sim- 
plest felt was for the awful Mystery of Life. 
Never in the history of the village had its sim- 
ple people been so slow in taking up the petty 
burden of daily struggle and strife. It seemed 
as if the least imaginative must be feeling the 
littleness of all earthly things. 

Even old lady Gordon’s look and manner 
were almost gentle, certainly more gentle than 
her grandson had ever seen them. Scarcely a 
word passed between the two after bidding 
each other good morning on meeting at the 
breakfast table ; and she saw him go in silence 
when the uneaten meal was over. He hastened 
straight up the road, looking neither to the 
right nor the left. Doris was with Miss 
Judy; he knew that she was, because he had 
haunted the house through the greater part of 
the terrible night, and, although he had not 
been able to speak to her, he had seen her 
413 


Oldfield 


shadow on the white curtain of Miss Judy’s 
room. The sight had comforted him some- 
what at the moment, but he now was longing 
more than ever to see her, to speak to her — 
longing with the unspeakably softened tender- 
ness that comes to love through grief. 

And he saw her through the window from 
Miss Judy’s gate. The poor old white cur- 
tain, with its quaint border of little snowballs, 
had been pushed back as far as it would go, 
much farther than it ever had been before 
when Miss Judy was lying in the high old 
bed. There was too desperate need for every 
wandering breeze, for every straying breath of 
air, for appearances to be remembered. Miss 
Judy herself could no longer guard the sacred 
privacy of that spotless chamber. She could no 
longer even blush faintly when the doctor laid 
his shaggy head against her hard-laboring little 
heart, listening for its weak fluttering, and 
hearing the soft knell of the pericardial mur- 
mur. For even this, which rings so harshly 
from sterner breasts, rang softly from Miss 
Judy’s gentle breast. Yet it rang unmis- 
takably, nevertheless, and there was nothing 
more that the doctor could do — nothing save 
to grieve, and he never stood idle for futile 
grieving when the suffering needed him else- 
where. After the doctor was gone to other 
duties, only Miss Sophia sat at the bedside, 
striving piteously to realize what was happen- 
ing; and Doris alone hovered silently over it 
and flitted softly around it; doing the little 
414 


The Last Artfulness of Miss Judy 

that she found to do, and holding back her 
tears for Miss Judy’s sake. But many others 
who loved Miss Judy were already gathering, 
and waited in the passage, looking out at the 
passers-by and shaking their heads speechlessly 
and sadly at those who paused at the gate to 
make anxious inquiry. 

Lynn Gordon did not enter the house, and 
he quickly turned his eyes away from the un- 
curtained window. Even his reveren^:' gaze 
seemed a profanation of the holiness of that 
quiet, shadowed old room, whence the soul of 
a saint was so near taking its flight from the 
earth. He crossed the narrow strip of front 
yard with noiseless steps and sat down on a 
broken bench under the window. He could 
hear Miss Sophia’s heavy breathing as the little 
sister tried to understand ; and he caught the 
soft rustle of Doris’s skirts as the girl moved 
now and then in her loving ministrations ; he 
could almost hear the swaying of the fan in 
her hand. Presently he became conscious of 
a familiar scent — faint, pure, delicate, like the 
spirit of perfume. He did not know at first 
what it was, but it seemed to float out through 
the open window; and after a little while he 
knew it to be the old-fashioned, natural, whole- 
some sweetness of dried rose leaves, the fra- 
grance which had always clung round Miss 
Judy’s life, the fragrance which would forever 
cling round her memory. 

As he sat there waiting, — as so many were 
now waiting, — others came and went. Anne 

415 


Oldfield 


Watson crossed the big road before sitting 
down to the card-table, and stood for a moment 
at the door, talking in a low tone to some one 
whom Lynn could not see. But her husband’s 
wistful, restless, compelling gaze followed her, 
drawing her back, and she did not linger. 
Nothing, not even her grateful affection for 
Miss J udy, could hold her long away from her 
post ; nothing, save death alone, could ever free 
her from it. And even after death — ! What 
then.? Always, Anne Watson was asking her- 
self that question; never was she able so to 
answer it that her soul was set at rest. She 
now went slowly and sadly to her place at the 
card-table, and she did not leave it again that 
day. But Lynn Gordon, keeping his vigil, saw 
her strange, mystical gaze wander many times 
from the burning stake to which she was 
bound, — a hopeless, tortured captive for life, — 
to the shadowed peace of the window behind 
his head. Ah, the inscrutableness of those 
strange eyes. The eyes of Anne Watson were 
the eyes of a fanatic, yet none the less the eyes 
of a martyr. 

He glanced now and then at the people who 
were coming and going so stilly and so sadly 
through the little broken gate. All gave him 
a friendly nod in passing, no matter whether 
they knew him or not, for that was the kind 
custom of the country. But no one stopped to 
speak to him; all appeared to be too deeply 
absorbed in their own sad thoughts. 

Only Kitty Mills smiled at him, and she did 

416 


The Last Artfulness of Miss Judy 

not know that she smiled, for her light heart 
was heavy enough that day. But she never 
had known what it was to have her eyes meet 
other eyes without smiling; and her merry brown 
ones smiled now of themselves without her 
knowledge, through mere force of habit. They 
had been sad indeed an instant before, and her 
round ruddy cheeks were drawn and pale, and 
bore traces of tears. She had been tirelessly 
running back and forth between her own house 
and Miss Judy’s, coming and going more often 
than any one else, as often, in truth, as she found 
herself momentarily released from her father- 
in-law’s ceaseless clamor for attention, and 
as his querulous summons recalled her to her 
perpetual bondage. His shrill, imperious cry 
now suddenly made itself distinctly heard 
through the reigning stillness; through that 
awesome stillness which reigns wherever death 
is expected ; that stillness which awes all, save 
the very young, who feel too far away to be 
afraid, and the very old, who are come too near 
to heed the awe. 

In response to the call Kitty Mills started to 
run across the big road as she had sped many 
times that day, and in so doing she encountered 
Miss Pettus, who had gone home and was now 
returning in great haste, bearing a small covered 
dish with the greatest care. At the sight of her 
the sadness instantly flitted from poor Kitty 
Mills’s face — which was newly wet with tears 
— and the old quizzical, bantering challenge 
flashed into it without her dreaming that it was 
2 E 417 


Oldfield 


there. But Miss Pettus saw it as quickly as it 
came, and her fiery temper flared up forthwith, 
like a flame in a sudden gust of wind. Her 
sharp little black eyes snapped with all the old 
fire, although they were red and swollen with 
weeping and watching the whole night through. 
Her homely, hard, faithful features stiffened at 
once with all the old scornful wrath as she 
caught Kitty Mills looking at the dish. 

“Ves, it’s a chicken for Miss Judy! And no 
bigger than a bird either — and tenderer too. 
There’s no law — that I know of — against my 
having late chickens, even if that stubborn old 
dorminica wotit set,” she said, as fiercely de- 
fiant as ever. 

She gave the usual contemptuous toss of her 
head in its gingham sunbonnet, and the accus- 
tomed excited swish of her starched calico skirt, 
as she passed Kitty Mills. And then she turned 
for the parting shot, which she could not even 
then bring herself to forego : — 

“ What if I have cooked this chicken for Miss 
Judy with my own hands.? Don’t / know as 
well as you do that she can’t eat it — nor any- 
thing else — ever again in this world .? And 
what’s that got to do with my cooking this 
chicken, and thinking that — maybe Miss Judy 
might feel a little better — if” — with a burst 
of angry sobbing, “ — if she could see Miss 
Sophia eat it. She always liked that better 
than anything for herself. You know as well 
as / do, Kitty Mills, that she always was just 
that silly and soft ! ” 

418 


The Last Artfulness of Miss Judy 

Miss Pettus went on toward the gate, and 
Lynn Gordon got up to open it for her, some 
passer-by having thoughtlessly dropped ovei 
the post the loop of faded blue ribbon which 
served in the place of a latch. How like 
Miss Judy that poor little scrap of daintiness 
was ! As he stood holding the gate back for 
Miss Pettus to pass, seeing that her hands 
were full, he heard the rumble of wheels, the 
rattle of some approaching vehicle. The great, 
brown cloud of dust lifted, drifting farther down 
the big road, and out of it came an old-fashioned 
buggy drawn by an old gray horse. This was 
driven by a white-haired negro, who had once 
been Colonel Fielding’s coachman, and who was 
now long since become his nurse. Beside the 
driver sat the colonel himself, and Lynn sprang 
to assist him in getting down from the buggy ; 
but the negro made a sly restraining gesture, 
and when the young man came near he saw 
that the colonel’s beautiful old head was shak- 
ing strangely, and that his fine old eyes appeared 
not to see what they were resting upon. The 
colonel gazed vaguely down at Lynn before he 
spoke : — 

“ Ah, yes — my compliments to little Mistress 
Judy. That was what I came to say. Will you 
be so very kind, young sir, as to give my com- 
pliments to the elder of the major’s daughters, 
and also to the major himself? Say, if you 
please, that Colonel Fielding has called this 
morning to pay his compliments to her and to 
her honored father. A man of honor, sir, a sol- 
419 


Oldfield 


dier, and a gentleman. Gad — sir — what more 
would you have ? What more could any man 
be ? ” he said, suddenly turning upon his ser- 
vant with a piteous touch of bewildered asperity. 

“ Th^-be-shore, sir ! 7b^-be-shore ! ” said the 
old negro, soothingly. 

“I — I seem — to disremember something,” 
the colonel went on, forgetting this momentary, 
formless annoyance. He sat still and silent for 
a space, trying to remember why he had come. 
He put his shapely hand to his high forehead 
in mild confusion. His thick, curling, silver 
hair fell around his face and upon his shoulders 
in rather wild disorder. 

“Little Judy is a mighty pretty girl — deli- 
cate, sweet, and fair as a sweet-brier blossom. 
No prettier nor sweeter girl ever footed the 
Virginia Reel in this whole Pennyroyal Region. 
You will give her and her honored father my 
message, if you please, young sir. ‘ Colonel 
Fielding’s compliments and also Miss Alice 
Fielding’s compliments to Major Bramwell and 
his daughter.’ You will not forget.?” 

“ I will not forget, sir,” said Lynn Gordon, 
as steadily as he could speak. 

“ And — and what else was it ? What else 
did I come for.? Tell me this instant, you 
black rascal ! ” the colonel now cried, again turn- 
ing upon his servant in excited, displeased be- 
wilderment. “ What do you mean — I say, sir 
— by sitting there without saying a word ? 
What was it I wanted to say about that young 
John Stanley, who’s eternally hanging round 
420 


The Last Artfulness of Miss Judy 

my house ? What did somebody tell me about 
him — only this morning? What’s the matter 
with you, can’t you speak, boy ? ” 

The old negro’s heavy lips were trembling 
so that he could not have spoken had there 
been anything to say. He sat bolt upright, 
gazing straight before him at the dust of the 
deserted highway ; his ragged coat was as care- 
fully buttoned as his fine livery used to be ; he 
held the reins — broken and spliced with rope 
— over the poor old horse, which stood with a 
dejected droop, precisely as he used to hold the 
fine, strong, lines over his master’s spirited bays. 

“Well — drive on home, then,” the colonel 
said, after a moment’s hesitation, suddenly re- 
covering his usual mildness. “ Perhaps I may 
remember — and if so you may fetch me back.” 

Lynn watched the buggy disappear amid the 
thickening clouds of dust, and when it was out 
of sight he turned with a sigh toward the 
people who were still coming and going, look- 
ing sadder when they went than when they 
came. He was surprised to see how many were 
passing through that humble little broken gate, 
with its pathetic fastening of a loop of faded 
ribbon, too weak to bar a butterfly. He had 
not thought there were so many in all Oldfield, 
counting both black and white, for both were 
now coming and going. He presently realized 
that some of these sad comers and sadder goers 
were not Oldfield people, that some lived farther 
away, and this knowledge filled him with greater 
surprise. For he would not have supposed 
421 


Oldfield 


that Miss Judy was known by any one beyond 
the compassing hills, so completely had her life 
seemed bound about by the wooded borders of 
the village. He had never known until now 
how far-reaching the influence of gentleness 
may be ; he had never realized until this mo- 
ment that goodness always wins more friends 
than greatness. 

He said something of this to the doctor’s wife, 
when she came softly after an hour had passed 
and silently sat down beside him on the bench 
under the window. She did not reply at once, 
but she took his hand and pressed it with the 
sympathy which common trouble begets in 
every feeling heart. She did not know how 
keenly he was craving sympathy, how sorely he 
himself was needing it, how bruised and broken 
he was by the spiritual crisis — the greatest of 
his life — through which he was passing so 
hardly. It was only that her tender heart was 
tenderer than ever, because she had come direct 
from the tavern. 

Thus the two sat for a few moments in 
silence, listening to the soft sounds which came 
at long intervals from the shadowed quiet 
within Miss Judy’s room. At length the doc- 
tor’s wife began to talk in the hushed tone which 
the feeling use near the dying — who appear 
to hear nothing but the Call ; and near the 
dead — who appear to hear nothing — nothing 
for evermore. She said that Miss Judy had not 
been told of the judge’s death ; and that she 
mercifully knew nothing of the horror which 
422 


The Last Artfulness of Miss Judy 

had gone before the tragedy. There was no 
need now that she ever should know, so the 
doctor’s wife said, with filling eyes. It would 
be time enough when the two met on the 
Other Side. And then — with that resistless 
reaching toward the unknowable, which always 
moves us when we feel the Mystery near, so near 
that it appears as if we have but to put out our 
hand to seize the invisible black wings which 
forever elude mortal grasp — she asked him if 
he believed that Miss Judy would know even 
then. She, herself, she said, could not see how 
a soul as gentle as the soft one then fluttering 
to escape its frail earthly prison, or how a soul 
as just as the one which had already found sacri- 
ficial release from a life of suffering, could be 
happy in heaven if it still knew the pain and 
the wrong and the cruelty of this world. But, 
however that might be, all would surely be 
well hereafter with these two. The doctor’s 
wife, rising to go back to the tavern, where 
other sad duties were yet waiting to be done, 
declared this with conviction. These two had 
not had their just share of happiness here; in 
fairness it must be awaiting them elsewhere, 
she concluded, lapsing into the simple audacity 
of everyday faith. 

Lynn walked with her a little way along the 
big road, and when she had gone some distance 
and he still stood looking after her, he heard 
again the sound of wheels and saw a vehicle 
approaching through the clouds of dust. He 
thought at first that the colonel had “ remem- 
423 


Oldfield 


bered” and was returning; but as the du^ 
clouds shifted he recognized his grandmother’s 
coach with a start of surprise, and a feeling very 
like alarm came over him as he saw that she her- 
self, erect, massive, white-robed, sat within the 
coach. He waited, standing still till the coach 
drew nearer, and then went outside and turned 
down the folding steps — from which the little 
black boy sprang — and assisted her to descend. 
But he did not speak, nor did she. Silently he 
offered his arm and she took it as silently as it 
had been offered, and they went together toward 
the passage door. It touched him to see with 
what difficulty she walked. It moved him thus 
to realize suddenly how old she was. It seemed 
to him that age was a very pitiful thing. Yet it 
also impressed him to see what a fine, stately 
personage she still was ; to read in the respect- 
ful eyes which followed her that she was still 
the great lady of the country, as she always had 
been. 

The abrupt withdrawal of her hand from his 
arm when they reached the door told him that 
she did not wish him to enter the house with 
her, and he as abruptly drew back, feeling the 
blood rush to his face as Sidney came out of 
Miss Judy’s room to receive his grandmother. 
Returning to his seat on the bench under the 
window, he tried not to strain his ears toward 
what was passing within the room, and he heard 
only the indistinct murmur of voices. But he 
could not help wondering miserably why his 
grandmother had come. He knew her too well 
424 


The Last Artfulness of Miss Judy 

to think that she had been induced to come 
by pure fondness for Miss Judy, such as had 
brought all these other people, who were so 
patiently waiting with heavy hearts and wet 
eyes. The sudden thought of Doris — a form- 
less fear for her — made him leap to his feet. 
And then he put away the vague alarm as 
unworthy of the rough justice, the haughty 
generosity, of his grandmother’s character. He 
sat down humbly, ashamed of his passing suspi- 
cion, to wait with such patience and composure 
as he might muster till she should come from 
Miss Judy’s room. But the intensity of his sus- 
pense became almost unendurable before it was 
ended. When his*grandmother finally appeared 
in the passage door, he sprang up with a nervous 
start and hurried to help her to the coach. Again 
they were both silent until she was comfortably 
settled on the easy cushions, silent even until 
the bag had been rehung closer to her hand, 
and the little black boy was again seated on 
the refolded step. Then she told him, speak- 
ing slowly and gruffly as though she found the 
few words hard and bitter to utter, that Miss 
Judy had asked her to send him to the bedside. 
When this had been said, and he had made no 
reply, old lady Gordon sat still and silent for a 
moment, looking grimly straight ahead, as if 
there were something else which she wished to 
say. But if so it was never said ; she suddenly 
and roughly ordered Enoch Cotton to drive her 
home, and went away — poor old lady Gordon 
— without a single backward glance. 

425 


Oldfield 


The young man then turned swiftly and went 
softly into Miss Judy’s room, as the reverential 
enter a holy place. Doris, bending over the 
bed, did not see him come. Miss Sophia 
was dozing, worn out with watching and grief 
and — most of all — with trying to understand. 
Sidney sat motionless in the farthest corner of 
the quiet, shadowy old room, where the shadows 
were deepest. The only sound was the hushed 
murmur of the voices of the many others who 
loved Miss Judy and who watched and waited 
without; some in the parlor, which had been 
opened wide at last, others in the passage, and 
more in the yard. 

The little figure on the big bed lay motion- 
less and with closed eyes. Such a little creature, 
so white, so beautiful, so wonderfully young — 
almost like a child, with the soft rings of silver 
hair wreathing the border of the snowy cap, and 
the little arms which always had been so strong 
for burdens, and the little, little hands, which 
always had been so busy for everybody but her- 
self, resting now — as still and cold as snow- 
flakes — on the deep blue of the old quilt. 
Looking down with dim sight and swelling 
heart, Lynn thought of the Divine Bambino 
lying asleep on its azure shield ; he could think 
of nothing else so unearthly in its loveliness. 

The blue eyes opened as if Miss Judy had 
felt his presence, and the flicker of a smile went 
over the sweet, quiet face. The young man, 
leaning down, thought that she murmured 
something in apology, that she tried to say 
426 


The Last Artfulness of Miss Judy 

something about a gentlewoman’s bed-cham- 
ber. But the words were so faintly uttered, 
and the pauses between were so long, that he 
could not be sure. 

“Dear Miss Judy, is there anything — any- 
thing in the whole world — that I can do ? ” he 
said, with all his heart. 

“ It is about the selling of the house. We 
can’t depend on John Stanley to sell it — to 
pay himself,” panted Miss Judy with long, an- 
guished waits between the words, almost be- 
tween the breaths. 

There was a still longer pause after this, a 
still longer wait for a slow wandering breeze to 
bring the needed breath. 

“ Dear John,” Miss Judy murmured, when 
she could speak again, “ he must not know 

— till the note is paid. He doesn’t quite real- 
ize what is due our father. You must overlook 
it, sister Sophia. He means only to be kind 

— so, so kind.” 

“Just so, sister Judy,” replied poor Miss 
Sophia, through the habit of a long lifetime, 
not knowing what she said. 

“Dear John. Dear John,” Miss Judy said 
again, hardly louder than her fluttering breath. 

There was a slight movement of her hand, 
and although the nerveless, cold little fingers 
fell powerless on the old blue quilt, the girl who 
hung over her knew what the movement meant. 
Doris understood that Miss Judy wished to 
have the judge’s letter read to her again ; but 
before it could be drawn from beneath the pil- 

427 


Oldfield 


low the blue eyes were closed, and Miss Judy 
seemed softly to fall asleep. In the deep silence 
which followed the shadowed room was filled 
with the hushed hum of the voices of the people 
waiting outside. 

It seemed to the watchers a long time before 
Miss Judy’s blue eyes opened gently, yet sud- 
denly and with a clearer look. It was a look 
quite like her old sweet self. There was in it 
even a fleeting expression almost like her old 
innocent artfulness. 

“ I hope you won’t mind — the — trouble,” 
she said, going on after a long pause, after wait- 
ing for her reluctant breath to return; after 
waiting for her true heart to beat once more. 
“I — should like — you — to — to consult Doris 
— often.” 

The blue eyes wandered from the young 
man’s face to the golden head bowed at the 
bedside. At least the young man thought so, 
but his own eyes were very dim, his own heart 
was beating very, very fast, and he could not 
see very clearly. 

“ I will do all that you wish, as nearly as I 
can,” he said tremulously. “ But — dear Miss 
Judy, have you considered? This is your sis- 
ter’s home — all that she has in the world.” 

Miss Judy’s little hand tried to creep toward 
her sister’s, but its strength failing Doris ten- 
derly took it in hers and laid it on MisS Sophia’s. 
Yet even then, when it had grown cold — with 
the coldness that never passes, and had become 
weak with the weakness that can never gain 
428 


The Last Artfulness of Miss Judy 

strength — it made a slight protecting move- 
ment. 

“ Sister Sophia — isn’t — willing — to keep 
what is — not — our own. And Doris — ” 

There now followed so long a pause that 
Doris, who had been quiet and calm in her 
self-control up to this moment, thought it too 
late for her grief to disturb Miss Judy — be- 
lieved it to be time to say quickly what she 
wished to say, if Miss Judy ever were to hear 
— and, dropping all guard, she burst into a 
passion of protest and weeping. 

“ Oh, you do believe that I can do what I Have 
promised, dear, dear Miss Judy. You surely 
believe that I can do what I have promised ! ” 
she cried. “ It would break my heart to think 
that you doubted. I don’t know how I can do 
it, but I will — I will — I will — somehow. I 
will take care of Miss Sophia — always — I will 
work so hard. There must be work — some- 
where, for me to do. Whatever I can make 
shall be hers. Anyway, our home is hers. I 
will try to be as good to her — as you have 
been to me.” 

“ I do believe — my child,” the faint and 
distant but sweet and loving voice said quite 
distinctly, and then, after one of the long, flut- 
tering pauses, “but — you must let — Lynn — 
advise you.” 

“ Oh, if Doris only would — if you only could 
persuade her,” Lynn cried. 

He fell on his knees beside the slender 
bowed figure, and laid his trembling hand on 

429 


Oldfield 


the golden head which rested now, shaken by 
sobbing, on the pillow close to the silver head 
that lay so quiet. He made no further vain 
effort to restrain a man’s rare, reluctant tears, 
nor to steady his broken voice. 

“ If you will ask Doris — maybe she can for- 
give me — for what I never meant to do — for 
what I did not know I was doing — till too late. 
Won’t you ask ? ” he implored. “ Dear, dear 
Miss Judy, she can refuse nothing — not even 
that — to you. And I love her so — with all 
my heart and soul and mind and strength. 
Won’t you ask her to let me help her in caring 
for Miss Sophia — then all would be well ; 
then there need be no more trouble. Can’t 
you speak, dear Miss Judy.'* Just one word. 
Try — iry to ask her to let me help her — 
even though she may never consent to be my 
wife.” 

But this late-found, powerful plea seemed for 
a space to come too late, to fall all unheeded 
away from death’s deaf ears. A wonderful 
radiance, such as rarely dawns in the face of 
the living, was now slowly dawning in the 
sweet, still whiteness of Miss Judy’s face. The 
young man could not look upon it; he could 
not bear to hear Doris’s helpless, heart-broken 
sobbing ; he could only keep to his knees and 
lay his humbled head lower on the old quilt and 
nearer hers. 

And then after a long time, after all hope 
of hearing the gentle voice again seemed 
wholly lost, it came back like a whisper in a 
430 


The Last Artfulness of Miss Judy 

dream, and Lynn and Doris heard Miss Judy 
say : — 

“I do — ask — it — Doris — dear one. But 

— unless — you are — married — it wouldn’t 

— be ” 

She could say no more, but she had said 
enough. With this crowning triumph of her 
last artless plot the smile on the little white 
face brightened forever into unearthly sweet- 
ness. With these last words Miss Judy’s gentle 
spirit breathed itself out of the world. 


431 


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